Mike Wise of the Washington Post was anything but what his last name suggests as he tried to prove a point via a Twitter hoax on Monday. Wise tweeted that Pittsburgh Steelers’ QB Ben Roethlisberger was handed a five-game suspension from Commissioner Roger Goodell over the accusations that he sexually assaulted a Georgia college student . It was a one-line tweet…
“Roethlisberger will get five games, I’m told.”
Wise wanted to prove that today’s journalists are much too careless with their stories and run rampant with any shred of a story they find without any fact-checking. It may have been a bad idea, but he did prove that point as hundreds of sources, ranging from small blogs to reputable news sources, used his fabricated one-liner to spin their own stories. Mission accomplished!
What was also accomplished was Wise receiving his very own suspension from his own employer, The Washington Post, for one month. He apologized both on Twitter and his radio show, claiming he made a “horrendous mistake”. The Post confirmed the suspension but would not make any further comments.
Is it possible that Big Ben isn’t the biggest horse’s ass written about in this article?
Nope.
