I was just curious: if a news source doesn't report on leaks or rumors that are stated by reputable leakers/sources, does that say anything about the news source?

Best Practices

For example, let's say there's a popular news source known as Gaming Today, which focuses on video games. Recently, someone named John Smith claimed on Twitter that, based on his sources, a new game in a video game series is in production and will be officially announced on a stream that day. It was already confirmed beforehand that such a stream was indeed happening. John Smith's leaks are almost always right, and he's built a reputation as being a reputable source on the latest gaming news. Multiple outlets report on John Smith's leak, all of which have the disclaimer "Rumor" or "Report", while noting that Smith usually gets his news right along with giving a few examples of him being wrong. However, Gaming Today is silent and doesn't report on it. Later on, the game is indeed confirmed and John Smith's leak proves to be true, and only then does Gaming Today report on the news.

In this case, given that Gaming Today did not report on the leak when virtually all of its competitors did so, what does it say about Gaming Today's quality or policies? Would they be considered a good source or a bad source? Does their reporting or non-reporting of their leaks affect their credibility or reliability? Finally, would they be right or wrong not to have reported on the leak despite it coming from someone with a good track record? I'm aware that news embargoes exist in journalism, but I'm not sure if that explains why other sources reported on the leak no problem.

Posted Sep 16, 2022, 1:06 AM UTC

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