Why The State of Journalism Is SCARY or “Mick Fleetwood, the Mainstream Media and Me!”

Well then, I’ve been super quiet on my blog which I’ve made an excuse before a couple of weeks ago, but things have just escalated more in life. First I was super sick over the new year, then I took a vacation to Maui, and then finally last weekend was RustyCon in Seattle (more on that in another post).  I experienced, for the first time in my life, something going viral in a big way that was initiated by me.

Now for you trusty readers out there — make Flying Sparks go viral for me! Link it to all your friends, tell them to do the same! http://flyingsparkscomic.com   /shamelessplug

While I was in Maui, I stumbled upon Uncle Willie K’s Blues Festival one evening. If you haven’t been to Maui, it’s beautiful, but there ain’t a whole lot to do other than lay on the beach, swim, lay on the beach some more, drink, eat, repeat. So a few days in, ADD me wants to find something interesting to do. So I determined to check out this Willie K.

Well, a lot of rock stars live on Maui, it seems. Willie K was joined by the guitarist from the Doobie Brothers, another guitarist from ZZ Top, and finally, Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac fame on drums. It was a jaw-dropping performance to say the least, one I wasn’t expecting from a backwater blues fest.

Willie K and Mick Fleetwood performed Fleetwood Mac’s song “Songbird” off the Rumors album, which I found a strange choice, since it was a Christine McVie song, and a slow song as well. For those unfamiliar with the band and don’t follow their every move as I do, Christine McVie retired from the band to go live in the country in England in 1997.  It was beautiful, yet an odd choice as it really didn’t have any blueseyness to the song, and didn’t quite fit within the uptempo set.

After the song, Mick Fleetwood announced, “This may be the worst kept secret there is, but Christine McVie will be rejoining Fleetwood Mac!”

Which was followed by some soft claps from the mostly 50+ crowd, and me screaming like a teenage girl who just saw Justin Bieber walk down the street in front of her.

Naturally, the first thing I do was go to my little Fleetwood Mac forums, and report the matter. Hundreds of posts follow with excitement. It was great, and confirmed everywhere by the media the next day.  You could read all about it in Rolling Stone, HuffPo, The Guardian, Onion’s AV Club, and 100 other internet sites within one day of that show. So thrilling of a thing, right?

Well here’s the interesting part. Someone on the Fleetwood Mac boards started questioning that I had heard what I said I reported. Others on the boards there started following the links, showing the confirmation by the media. Well, if one actually looked closely at the links, all the media posts said “It was reported…” and linked a site called Fleetwood Mac News as their source.

Fleetwood Mac News linked DIRECTLY back to my post.

Now this was perfectly legitimate news. Mick Fleetwood did say what I said he said, and it was actually confirmed a few days later by the only apparent journalists on the internet, Billboard.com who called the Mac’s publicist to get confirmation.

The scary part is that all of these mainstream media websites jumped to the “scoop” based on one post on the internet from some guy who has a picture of a female superhero (Meta-Girl from Flying Sparks’ fame! READ MY COMIC!) as his avatar.

I could have completely made it up, and it would have been all over the world within hours. How creepy is that?

So next time you read the news, look at the sources. I’ve seen people demonized and lives destroyed in the public arena based on allegations, and when the follow up stories are done later, they’re buried. I proved myself that it just takes a post on a forum somewhere to spark a media craze if the topic sounds legitimate enough. Definitely makes me wary of our current society.

But the good news is, Christine McVie is back in the Mac!!!!!!  I expect a tour to follow soon, and you can quote me on that!