Do you want to know how internet rumors start? Well, obviously they start the same way real life non-internet rumors start. It’s like the old whisper game many of us played as kids, only with fast and furious, and in a lot of times disastrous results.

I saw an article today that talked about there might be a sequel to the movie Fanboys. I’m sure many of you haven’t seen this film (neither have I) but it’s one of those films that had an interesting journey to the screen, which translates into too many fingers in the pie and a possibly quaint film was mishandled and pretty much went straight to video. Fanboys is the story of some friends who go across country to Skywalker Ranch to get their dying friend to see Star Wars: The Phantom Menace before it’s released. The film was released maybe for a week at 10 or so screens and was just released on video.

Like I said, the article I saw screamed there may be a sequel to the movie, however when I checked the link to the source material, the headline was a little misleading. One of the actors expressed interest in doing a sequel, one where they went to Australia to crash the set of Attack of the Clones. He gave the usual non-committal actor’s answer when he said if the script was right, if the original cast came on board and if the director got to shoot the film without interference he would be willing to do a sequel. That’s a lot of maybe and definitely isn’t close to the statement of a sequel possibly being made.

There was another rumor yesterday which illustrates how reporters, some reporters, are just getting too lazy to fact check a story. A small independent tabloid outside of the United States, if I recall correctly, reported that Patrick Swazye had died. From the timeline I heard about thirty minutes later a German television station reported the story. Within 30 seconds of them airing that, it was tweeted that he had died.

Patrick Swazye isn’t dead and it is a testament to the restraint of many reporters here they didn’t run on air with the story, however there were many conversations on Twitter about his death until it was confirmed he was alive.

We’re not doing the clearing we need to do on stories, and now its more difficult because a Twitter message can bounce to millions of people, all who will assume it is the truth because they read it on Twitter. It wasn’t cleared, wasn’t vetted but we can send something so instantly that if it turns out to be untrue its impossible to un-ring the bell. When I hear tragic news I have to check online sources and verify with a news station before I begin to think of it as fact. There’s just too much sloppy or loose reporting to figure the first news you hear on something as being the full story.

It’s like the Fanboys report. Unless you read the root of the story it would seem they were close to doing a sequel to an underperforming movie, when the truth is one actor was just talking maybe to get the ball rolling for a sequel. We have to be more careful in what we figure is news because of the rapid pace our new technology is allowing raw information being distributed.