A Half-Hearted Defence of "Newz" Sites

[James McCloud IS John Godot]

So we all rail against sub-TMZ 'newz' sites right? With their crazy rumours and obviously made-up nonsense, they are evil and exist only to lie to us. Obviously.

But isn't it professional wrestlings extreme reluctance to discuss anything outside of its own press releases and kayfabe stories as well as its extreme distrust of the legitimate media that has led to the poverty of legitimate news sites?

In an industry where talking to, or even being caught browsing, a news site is some sort of cardinal sin, due to it supposedly exposing a business already blown open and reveling in its use of "writers", is it any wonder stories can never be sourced?

Surely at least part of the blame for the popularity of 'newz' sites is due to the industry itself ensuring that all that can exist are dirt sheets and gossip columns.

Thoughts?

[Chainsaw]

Yeah, but, as far as I know, the onlly place that really clamps down on wrestlers speaking out of turn is WWE. And even then, Twitter is full of wrestlers expressing themselves.

Sure, the code of kayfabe puts a stifle on these things, but a lot of the speculative stuff is wannabe newsmakers who don't have the time or patience to factcheck, and decide to rely on shadowy "contacts" that are probably more than likely making stuff up to make the "reporter" look like a fool.

[strykerdarksilence]

To the certain level I agree with you, but when stuff like the reporting that Roddy Piper is dying comes up today, I really think they need to totally rebuild themselves as proper journalistic outlets.

[Hiroshi Hase]

Some of their stories can be fairly reasonable, but others (Orton standing up to DX backstage because DX was pissed that Umaga had green on his tights, and only DX can have that) sound so silly it's hard to take seriously.