Yeah, sports journalism has pretty much gone out of control, with the two recent columns on Brady as good examples. The original stories are bad enough, but the real problem is with how the story gets repeated, then that story gets repeated, etc. The story by Silver on Yahoo is a good example. His column was clearly speculation, then his editor throws an attention grabbing headline on the article, and the next thing you know hundreds of other media outlets are writing or talking about the topic as if it is fact. Some pick it up because it will generate page views or ratings, while others do knowing they will be left behind by their audience if they don't. At that point the story has soon been repeated so many times that is accepted as factual, and fans and media are all offering their own opinion on an event that never happened.
I'm not picking on them specifically, but sites like Yahoo have a difficult task when attempting to maintain or increase their audience when they not only have hundreds of competitors, but they have very large tv/internet combo competitors with deep pockets - not just the dominant market leader espn, but cbs sports, fox sports, and even to a lesser extent nbc sports. The internal pressure from the corporate bosses to increase market share increases the temptation to push the envelope, short of anything that would result in a lawsuit for libel.
I'm not sure what the answer is, other than making it a habit to go back to the original story before forming an opinion. Unfortunately the masses won't do that, so expect more of the same in the foreseeable future.
