![Rolling Stone, YA BURNT!
So, the world was set afire a few hours ago when news broke that Adam Lambert was going to be the new lead singer for Queen. Rolling Stone led the charge with their story that was headlined, “ADAM LAMBERT IS QUEEN’S NEW SINGER.” Except, you see, he’s actually not.
Rather than put in a call to Lambert’s people or Queen’s people for confirmation, an act that the once venerable institution would have most certainly done in the past, they simply reprinted a report that came from London’s Daily Star (which, quite frankly, is a paper that I had never heard of until today, and I’ve been covering entertainment for a REAL long time) and advanced a rumor.
Now, you see, Rolling Stone is ever-so-subtly trying to backtrack from their original reporting. In an unstated admission that that their original report was erroneous and wholly untrue, the new headline on RollingStone.com is “ADAM LAMBERT TO SING WITH QUEEN.” (You can see the two different heds in my pic above). They also changed the lede of their story from “Adam Lambert is APPARENTLY the new singer for Queen” to “Adam Lambert is REPORTEDLY the new singer for Queen” (emphasis mine). A classic backtrack, if ever I saw one.
While it’s totally standard journalistic operating procedure to update a story as soon as new shit has comes to light, RS should at least have the journalistic integrity to admit that, in the words of Bobby De Niro in Copland, THEY BLEEEEEEEWWWWW IT with their original report and note that they had to make a correction.
You may be asking yourself, “Does this even matter?” You know what? The answer is, for 99.9% of the people out there, no, this little slip-up has no bearing on anything whatsoever. Lambert will or won’t confirm this report soon enough. [UPDATE (8:13pm): Lambert just denied the reports on his official Twitter account.] I just wrote this post to go on the record and say that there ARE still a few of us out there who still care about antiquated concepts like integrity when it comes to journalistic endeavors. This is the kind of behavior that I would’ve expected out of Perez Hilton, not Rolling Stone.
Now, do I still respect Rolling Stone? Of course I do! They do tons of excellent reporting, and they employ a few of my favorite writers (like the unquestionably principled Matthew Perpetua and Rob Sheffield). I just brought this issue up to challenge them to do better in the future. That’s all.
UPDATE: Adam Lambert Is NOT Going To Be The New Lead Singer Of Queen [VH1 Tuner]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyufjflIyh1qz75z5o1_1280.jpg)
Rolling Stone, YA BURNT!
So, the world was set afire a few hours ago when news broke that Adam Lambert was going to be the new lead singer for Queen. Rolling Stone led the charge with their story that was headlined, “ADAM LAMBERT IS QUEEN’S NEW SINGER.” Except, you see, he’s actually not.
Rather than put in a call to Lambert’s people or Queen’s people for confirmation, an act that the once venerable institution would have most certainly done in the past, they simply reprinted a report that came from London’s Daily Star (which, quite frankly, is a paper that I had never heard of until today, and I’ve been covering entertainment for a REAL long time) and advanced a rumor.
Now, you see, Rolling Stone is ever-so-subtly trying to backtrack from their original reporting. In an unstated admission that that their original report was erroneous and wholly untrue, the new headline on RollingStone.com is “ADAM LAMBERT TO SING WITH QUEEN.” (You can see the two different heds in my pic above). They also changed the lede of their story from “Adam Lambert is APPARENTLY the new singer for Queen” to “Adam Lambert is REPORTEDLY the new singer for Queen” (emphasis mine). A classic backtrack, if ever I saw one.
While it’s totally standard journalistic operating procedure to update a story as soon as new shit has comes to light, RS should at least have the journalistic integrity to admit that, in the words of Bobby De Niro in Copland, THEY BLEEEEEEEWWWWW IT with their original report and note that they had to make a correction.
You may be asking yourself, “Does this even matter?” You know what? The answer is, for 99.9% of the people out there, no, this little slip-up has no bearing on anything whatsoever. Lambert will or won’t confirm this report soon enough. [UPDATE (8:13pm): Lambert just denied the reports on his official Twitter account.] I just wrote this post to go on the record and say that there ARE still a few of us out there who still care about antiquated concepts like integrity when it comes to journalistic endeavors. This is the kind of behavior that I would’ve expected out of Perez Hilton, not Rolling Stone.
Now, do I still respect Rolling Stone? Of course I do! They do tons of excellent reporting, and they employ a few of my favorite writers (like the unquestionably principled Matthew Perpetua and Rob Sheffield). I just brought this issue up to challenge them to do better in the future. That’s all.
UPDATE: Adam Lambert Is NOT Going To Be The New Lead Singer Of Queen [VH1 Tuner]
