UPDATE: Taking a tweet and running with it: Are you sure Kobe Bryant said that?


Update: Mr. Basket deleted his tweet quoting Kobe at some point today. I wonder why?

Original post:
I know I'm probably going to get skewered for posting on this, since it's sort of about the Lakers and not Boston, but it still needs to be said.

So, there's a tweet going around about Kobe Bryant supposedly talking about the Kevin Love-Andrew Wiggins trade. I say supposedly because the tweet is all there is.



That tweet has been picked up by multiple sites and taken as gospel. Just do a Google search with Kobe Bryant and Andrew Wiggins and you'll see places like SLAM Magazine, Dime Magazine and several others writing articles or making posts with the assumption that Bryant actually said this. Even respected Basketball Insiders reporter Alex Kennedy has been caught up in it.



Now with Kennedy's endorsement, other sites are writing articles using his tweet instead of the original. Some don't even bother citing a source at all. It's just become "what Bryant said."

But where did this quote come from? Why is no one else reporting it first-hand? Did this Mr. Basket get an exclusive sit-down with Bryant? If so, why not publish something more than a single tweet? Did he say nothing else of interest? Who is @2014MrBasket?

Don't be shocked if Bryant later refutes ever saying this. This tweet strikes me as someone writing what they think Bryant would say about this situation, not a real quote. It's worse than a game of telephone because that game actually starts out with a real source to mangle.

This is now the world we live in. Someone puts quotes after a player's name and it becomes fact. Everyone wants to be the first to give their opinion on "what Kobe just said," while forgetting to check and see if Bryant actually said it. It's sloppy and makes the whole industry look bad. Attribution and sourcing are big deals that can't be ignored. In this case, most sites do attribute the quote to the original tweet, but they stop there and take it as good enough.

One of the key tenets of journalism is supposedly accuracy over speed. Supposedly.

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