Miami’s WSVN got a little too excited about the Heat’s potential signing of Ray Allen as the Fox-affiliate issued a breaking news update during its 11 p.m. newscast Thursday to declare that the NBA champions had agreed to a deal with the former All-Star, apparently based on a tweet from a Twitter impostor.
WSVN sports anchor Mike DiPasquale attributed the news to Yahoo! Sports, but it doesn’t appear that Yahoo! Sports reported anything of the sort. Both Deadspin and Bleacher Report report that WSVN was likely fooled by a fake Twitter account falsely attributed to influential Yahoo! Sports columnist Adrian Wojnarowski.
Following the erroneous breaking news report, and an accompanying tweet, WSVN tweeted an apology:
7News jumped the gun on the Ray Allen report. We apologize.
— WSVN-TV (@wsvn) July 6, 2012
What makes the erroneous report even stranger is that a tweet sent from what appears to be the fake Adrian Wojnarowski twitter account in question has the terms of the deal at 3 years and $9 million. WSVN reported the terms to be 3 years and $11 million, which could mean that the station made an error in citing the terms of a fake deal from its false source.
Here’s the video…
[Deadspin, Bleacher Report, Black Sports Online]