Greatly exaggerated
Peyton Manning is not dead.
But for a while this afternoon we were starting to sweat.
The phone in the newsroom was ringing off the hook with rumors he’d been killed in a crash.
Someone heard it in their Bingo hall. Another says a trucker friend heard it from someone connected with paramedics. Most had heard it through a friend of a friend, who didn’t know where the rumor came from. Even ESPN and CNN wanted to know what was going on.
We checked. Manning is fine - according to the Colts’ publicist who says he talked PERSONALLY with Mr. Manning.
This happened to Mark Twain once. The eloquent author quipped famously, after being reported dead in a newspaper, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
I am curious though, how many of you heard this rumor through some sort of grapevine today - and whether you believed it?? What kind of info got to you… and where did it supposedly come from? And how do you think news stations should go about handling such rumors? We feel obligated to set the record straight, without making TOO huge a deal out of something that turned out to be nonsense.
I’d love to hear your thoughts, Colts fans!
TS
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At the Super Target on South 135. There were lots of people with long faces and so my son-in-law started to inquire…
The story was Peyton had been involved in a car accident and was dead. Our daughter called us at home and asked if we had heard anything on the TV. We said no and started surfing channels and the Internet…
Still no clues.
At the 11 PM newscast, my wife and I bounced between the local channel newscasts. Only Dave on Channel 6 brought the rumor to the attention of the audience and quickly put it to bed….
Thanks for the feedback, Michael. It was a really interesting process in the newsroom that night collaborating on the best way to address all the concerns, without giving any credence to a wild rumor.
I’m so glad you were pleased with how we handled it! Thank you for watching and for writing in - we really appreciate it.
Trish
I heard the news from a text that I received from my best friend at IU, she had heard at IU about the rumor and since she knew that I am a sports buff, she texts me about Peyton. I didn’t know about it, and then I went on Facebook and I asked if anyone knew about it, and I received a lot of questions, even people from Dallas to Canada wanted to know, good thing that was a rumor…
This same rumor was true with Aaliyah-now this was about 2 years before she actually died on a plane crash, some goofball called the local hip-hop station and said that Aaliyah was killed in a car crash. I love Aaliyah and I still listen to her music, but everyone wanted to know about it. Good thing it was a rumor, but sad knowing that 2 years later, she’s no longer with us…