Sidney Crosby in Jail?: Getting it out There Before Getting it Right

On Wednesday, QMI Agency reported that Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby was arrested in Ottawa on driving-related charges. From the original story:

“Pittsburgh Penguins centre Sidney Crosby was arrested by Ottawa Police late Tuesday while driving a rented Porsche, sources have told QMI Agency. Reasons of his arrest were unknown, but appear to be driving related."

 Unfortunately for QMI, none of this actually happened. In fact, Crosby was not even in Canada! Both the Ottawa police and the Pittsburgh Penguins released statements confirming that Sid had no dealings with the police and that he was in Vail, Colorado preparing for training camp.

Vail? Say, that rhymes with jail! Yes, it is completely possible that this person heard "Sidney Crosby is in jail" instead of "Vail." Now, if I was in a position to possibly break the biggest hockey story of the year, I would probably want to clarify what I just heard:

"Jail!? In prison?"

"No, you must have misheard me, I said Vail. He's in Colorado, training."

One of my biggest pet peeves as a journalist is not getting the story right. Now I understand that sometimes things happen, and things could be reported falsely, especially with social media. But there are ways to confirm something you hear. This story should never have made it out, and it doesn't just stop at the reporter.

All news agencies want to be the first to break a news story, it shows your viewers/readers that you can be reliable. Twitter has made breaking news almost instantaneous, but even more importantly than being first, you have got to be correct. Especially with a story like this.

There's no doubt that if this story was true, this would be the biggest hockey story of the last couple years, maybe even the last decade or couple of decades. For all you aspiring journalists out there, if you ever get a huge, potentially career changing story like this, make sure you quadruple-check your facts!



This story also caused some hilarious reactions on Twitter. You can check them out here.