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Anatomy of a Rumor

• March 4, 2010 5:56 pm

How did the folks at Radar Online ever get the idea Chief Justice Roberts was going to retire?  It appears the folks at ATL have found the answer [UPDATE: link fixed].

Categories: Uncategorized    

    11 Comments

    1. Steve says:

      I think you linked to the wrong ATL post.

      March 4, 2010, 6:04 pm

    2. ruuffles says:

      Dick Cheney wasted his 6th heart attack for nothing.

      March 4, 2010, 6:12 pm

    3. Guy says:

      I think this was the intended link.

      March 4, 2010, 6:12 pm

    4. ruuffles says:

      Also, there’s some strangeness with the timing. Gawker has analysis. I’m very certain that the retraction didn’t go up until after noon EST.

      But there is still some weirdness. Like: the Professor “broke” the “news” around 9 a.m. EDT, and RadarOnline.com’s first post has a 6:10 AM (PDT, we assume) timestamp. Which makes sense. The professor revealed the truth a half-hour later, and RadarOnline.com retracted “updated” their story a half-hour later, with a post with a 6:36 AM timestamp. That also makes sense.

      But no one saw the post until almost 1 pm EDT, and their “retraction” story didn’t appear on the site until almost 1:45 pm. We emailed RadarOnline.com Executive Vice President David Perel, and he said the timestamps are “off,” giving another example of a story that went up at a time that had nothing to do with the timestamp.

      So. Maybe the post was drafted this morning but RadarOnline.com didn’t publish it until literally hours after they knew it was false? Maybe RadarOnline.com’s servers are located on the LOST island? Or maybe—and don’t put it past the little bastards—the law students are hoaxing us!

      http://gawker.com/5486038/did-radaronlinecoms-john-roberts-rumor-come-from-a-first+year-law-class

      March 4, 2010, 6:14 pm

    5. ptt says:

      I assumed it was related to some of the comments in Prof. Adler earlier thread:

      http://volokh.com/2010/03/02/chief-justice-roberts-denies-stay-of-same-sex-marriage-in-d-c/#comments

      March 4, 2010, 6:16 pm

    6. Mike McDougal says:

      Did you hear that Roberts is going to become the general counsel for Airbus in the U.S. so he can face off against Luttig?

      March 4, 2010, 6:32 pm

    7. lgm says:

      Some baseless rumors cause more damage than others and are propagated more vigorously by the “who cares if it’s true” right wing media. There are sins of inaccuracy on both sides, but the level of right wing inaccuracy has (as scientists sometimes say) more zeros.

      March 4, 2010, 11:23 pm

    8. gwinje says:

      Pedagogic WIN!

      March 5, 2010, 4:06 am

    9. LN says:

      My money is on the law students hoaxing us.

      March 5, 2010, 8:55 am

    10. wesley says:

      I had a law school professor do the exact same thing, but with Ginsburg.

      March 5, 2010, 2:25 pm

    11. markm says:

      There’s one law professor that really should have banned electronics devices in the classroom.

      March 5, 2010, 8:09 pm