Not many people know that my trade actually is a journalist. Didn't last too long as I thought I was the next Nev in call centre world. During my training, we would have to react to breaking news, and in one scenario that we had, we had mock breaking news of a sinking ship of the Mannacles just off Land's End. We had to coordinate the response, take in evidence, eye witness reports, quantify the evidence and check it, verify and then add to the picture. We had counter rumour, and "eye witness" reports, which we, as cub reporters, over reacted too.
We were told about the "fog of war". In the moments after any event, details become sketchy. I remember just after the Twin Towers, they was a plane crash in Queen's, a suburb of New York, which killed all on board. The BBC stayed with plane crash, but the American Networks (Fox, NBC, CBS et al) went the whole hog. Terrorist atrocity, let's get Osama, war on terror, let's see what's happening in Afghanistan. It transpired to be a tragic accident, but the over reaction fed on hearsay and rumour made a laughing stock of the American media at the time.
With the advent of social media, we get information much much quicker. Look at 20 years ago, you'd have to wait a month to find out who won that Long Eaton final. With this social revolution, the ability to skew a story is very much more easier to do. Facebook and Twitter are useful tools, but they have made the fog of war even more foggier. Everyone is an on the spot reporter, you only have to look at the amount of footage that becomes available an incident. So much Chinese whispers gets passed on from the first hand and bastardized. The actual information can get skewed and become exaggerated.
And when that person is the biggest name in the sport, all sorts of rumours, conjecture and bullshit can take place. So when Gordon Moodie (7) required medical assistance after a throttle stuck open at Taunton on Sunday during the GN. As the majority of his fans weren't there, the information forthcoming was based on what had been passed on twitter and facebook. Indeed, I was a 40th wedding anniversary shindig, and my thanks to the legendary Mr Commenstarter Andy Chant, was relaying information back to me. Now, hand on heart, I'm not the biggest Moodie fan, but no driver should get injured doing the sport that we all love. Now, Gordon is blessed with a lot of fans, some of them real fundamentalists. It was fun to see the fallout on Facebook and twitter, with the sketchy information, and people guessing and speculating, and the conspiracy theorists even trying to blame Speaky for it! Indeed, Mike Priddle and Andy Maidment had to go online to request (on Gordon's behalf) to basically shut the "flip" up and let Gordon get better. Had this had have happened at Cowdenbeath, I doubt the reaction would have been so bad. It seems that all the drivers need to employ media agents to deal with the speculation and nonsense. As long as the statements don't get as long as Adrian Blackwell's long winded ones used to be on Roger's site....
Everyone hates Hear'say that's we've forgotten all about it, and they all act in Emmerdale and Corrie now...
Statements like this one keep people informed and stop the Hearsay.
"At Smeatharpe on Sunday 16 June, BriSCA F2 National Points Champion 7 Gordon Moodie suffered a severe cut to his right foot, when he crashed out of the Grand National.
Moodie was taken to hospital, in Taunton, where he was detained overnight. X-rays revealed no broken bones. He is set to have an operation under general anaesthetic on Monday 17 June, to help to repair and heal the cut, and is set to spend a second night in the hospital.
Autospeed with Gordon a speedy recovery, and will endeavour to provide further updates as and when available"
An excellent example of how to stop rumour and getting 2 and 2 and making 4, instead of 7. Even such sports like cricket have been the subject of rumour, with England being alleged of ball tampering, following the match against Sri Lanka, when a ball was changed by the umpires because it was out of shape, when a simple statement from the ICC could have stopped any rumours there and then. So well done Autospeed. Most importantly though....
So, get well soon Gordon, and don't pick the scabs...
It was such a crazy weekend of big incidents. Coming off the news of legend Bill Batten's (167) serious work based injury, came Graham Fegan's (NI998) monster roll at Nutts Corner, and the rare sight of a F1 bending like Beckham with a huge one for Messrs Finnikin, Newsome and Johnson at Buxton, can we have a nice and glorious pain free weekend please?
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