Written by A rapid succession of journalistic slip-ups on Saturday night led to the spread of false news reports of the death of Joe Paterno, the former Penn State coach, more than 12 hours before his doctors and family members said he had died.
The false reports required a public reaction from Mr. Paterno’s family and were embarrassing for the news organizations involved, including CBS Sports, The Huffington Post and an arm of MSNBC.com called BreakingNews.com.
Widely shared (and then even more widely denounced) on Twitter and Facebook, the situation called to mind the false claims that Representative Gabrielle Giffords had been killed in a mass shooting in Tucson one year ago. She had been gravely wounded, but not killed.
The response was similar, too. There were apologies by the news organizations and a rush of attention paid to the sometimes precarious race to be among the first to report news.
