Not Quite Just The Facts

The following is two paragraphs from a story by Mike Florio on his web site Profootballtalk.com:

"The fact that Mechelle McNair didn't know combined with a claim from Kazemi's family that McNair would soon be divorcing his wife could point to a set of facts in which McNair was trying to break things off with Kazemi, who while under the influence of alcohol (or something else) might have reacted irrationally -- and violently -- to the news.

But where did the gun come from? It possibly belonged to McNair, who might have left the thing laying around without ever considering that the girl he was dating would use it on him."

Now let's count how many times in the span of three sentences Florio decides to just completely make up what he thinks might have happened -
1: "could point to a set of facts"
2: "who while under the influence of alcohol (or something else)"
3: "might have reacted irrationally"
4: "It possibly belonged to"
5: " who might have left the thing laying around"
6: "without ever considering"

Not bad. Only six times where Florio just guesses. Now, it could turn out that everything he made up did in fact happen. But shouldn't someone writing on a very prominent web site, not be so quick to just print rumors and what he believes may have happened? How many people will read that and gloss over the words Florio carefully couches his language in, such as "could point" or "might have" or "it possibly", and just use Florio's imagination to fill in the blanks to this tragic story.

For anyone who follows Profootballtalk.com, which is connected with NBCSports.com, you will know this type of report first, fact check second process is par for the course for Florio. But there is also a difference between reporting rumors when it comes to covering the NFL and the games, as compared to writing about a person's murder.

Update: It only took a few hours for one of Florio's made-up-rumors to be debunked, as now there is a report that the gun was not McNair's, but that the Kazemi had recently bought the gun. Florio also provides this same update to the story on his web site, but of course makes no mention of his previous incorrect posting. Another job well done by Florio.