In any case, they tend to parrot each other. if a report shows up one place, it ends up a lot of other places without any fact checking going on. Not that this kind of thing can be fact checked in any reasonable way.
This is an excellent and often overlooked point in today's world. The number of sources reporting an alleged "fact" often has little or nothing to do with its credibility or veracity: it has more to do with the sensationalism of the alleged "fact". I'm seeing this yet again with the reporting about a certain man in Florida, who allegedly threatened his wife with a gun, but now that does not seem to be the case at all.
Sadly many, if not most, news organizations today simply scan the web, social networking sites and news services and report what others are saying as if it is true, with no independent access or checks of the ground truth. Back in the day, this was called rumor, not news. Grandpa used to say "Only believe half of what you read and nothing of what you hear." He was a naive and trusting soul. . .
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