There's a difference.

The desire of the individual to have information before there is information to be had drives the news organizations. If there wasn't an audience for speculation, they wouldn't be reporting ahead of the facts.

So, no. There's not.

(I do understand the impulse, to be clear. People want to know and understand something not understandable. I still think that at all levels it does more harm than good.)

I'm sorry, but "audience for speculation" is a specious bit of bullshit.

The word for that is "curiosity." That's not what's wrong with the news cycle.

So, no. There's not.

I disagree. There's a huge difference between the responsibility for a news organization to have all the facts confirmed before making a report and people discussing what may or may not have happened.

There is absolutely no negative impact to inquiring, and the implication that it's some kind of morbid impulse in baseless gossip is pretty far from my desire to get a handle on it.

FTR, I totally get what you are saying, Plei. I think without actually sensible, confirmed information, it is all speculative and sort of kneejerky.

Anyone hear from ita?

I'm sorry, but "audience for speculation" is a specious bit of bullshit.

Dude, Paul used to work in news. He worked in news for YEARS. It's really, really not. How do you think TV news *works*? The whole mindset is driven by what can get the eyes on them, what does the audience want. And it's only got worse over the last decade.

This is on both a local and national level.

And in its separate post

There is absolutely no negative impact to inquiring, and the implication that it's some kind of morbid impulse in baseless gossip is pretty far from my desire to get a handle on it.

I said in my follow up that I understand the impulse to try to wrap our heads around it. But wrapping our heads around it is not the same thing as saying, "hey, someone on ABS said it was Joe Schmoe in the basement with the lead pipe, and someone thinks they've found Joe's Facebook page."

Thanks for asking, Kat. I've been wondering about her, too.

I'm just...waving feebly, and not commenting on events of note.

Gunman's mother owned weapons used in Connecticut school massacre

Supposedly the gunman's brother hadn't spoken to him since 2010. Do you think they have the same mother?

But wrapping our heads around it is not the same thing as saying, "hey, someone on ABS said it was Joe Schmoe in the basement with the lead pipe, and someone thinks they've found Joe's Facebook page."

If people want to use Natter as a virtual newsroom, then I still don't see the problem. I got more and better information here, well ahead of the official reportage. I took advantage of the judgment, interest, discretion and superior newsfeeds of other Buffistae.

Aside from all that, it's really not a subject that needed a thread nanny. At all. Some people obviously were interested in talking about it, and we weren't talking about it in Beep Me.