By Fiona Halkerston
The past couple of weeks have seen a flurry of rumours which have transcended from blogs, tweets, texts and forums to become international news headlines.
We’ve seen everything this month from speculation about Google’s social networking site go from a single tweet to The Independent, to celebrity rumours ranging from the Beckham’s alleged divorce, Justin Bieber being pregnant, the text message scandal surrounding Steven Gerrard and his sister-in-law and, I can barely say it, the rumour of Barry Chuckle’s sudden death.
It seems that as soon as a story of interest becomes a trending topic on Twitter or Google, the line between gossip and news becomes blurred. If the story involves a celebrity, it is bound to make headlines as the celebrity in question invariably speaks out to quash the rumours and allegations against them.
As we see more and more reputable news outlets begin to charge for online content, will internet news consumers give up checking the validity of such stories at their previously trusted sources? One approach to combat this is to slate rumours at the source as demonstrated by Google yesterday. Dan Morrill, head of Android’s Open Source and Compatibility Technology, used Twitter to debunk claims and reassure followers about Android 3.0 Gingerbread rumours. The problem is however, tweets clarifying the truth behind the rumours are unlikely to get as many views, or as much news coverage, as the untrue gossiping tweets and trending topics.
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