Locker Rooms and Journalism

The internet is instantaneous. We expect informed opinions yesterday and updates the day before for today's news. News outlets want to develop a reputation of being first to report something, which often means that they don't have time to validate (but they have endless airtime to tell you that you heard it hear first). This is why unconfirmed stories about celebrities deaths can go viral before the person has even read their morning paper (and who reads the paper instead of just setting up an RSS feed?).