The Circuitous Life of a Rumor

» 01 December 2009 » In mlb »

Consider the following:

So this rumor, which is entirely reasonable, has come full circle: it originated in Japan, made its way via the blogosphere into the US media, and wound up getting repeated in a different Japanese publication. This isn’t meant to be self-congratulatory, but I think it demonstrates the position of social media.

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  1. Patrick
    EJH
    01/12/2009 at 6:47 pm Permalink

    Congratulations!

  2. Patrick
    simon
    02/12/2009 at 12:12 am Permalink

    Yeah, I noticed that HardballTimes also picked it up. But I guess the Tribune picking it up gave the rumour extra validity for Sanspo, which is ironic as it originated as a Sponichi rumour. In this case it’s Saito and it’s a realistic scenario, but this could happen with a wacky scenario if a similar circle happens for someone like say, Hideki Matsui :p

  3. Patrick
    Patrick
    02/12/2009 at 1:12 am Permalink

    The same thing happened last year with Tazawa. I collected a bunch of info from the Japanese press, translated it into English, and then it wound up in the Washington Post. The some publication in Japan (can’t remember which one) published an article saying “the Washington Post said this about Tazawa!” but it was all rehashed from Japanese sources. The story there was that the Post was writing about Tazawa, rather than the information in the article.

    Matsui is a surprisingly controversial figure. You should have seen the media backlash after I regurgitated the Nikkan Sports article about the Red Sox being interested in him.