ESPN Might Refute This Later

Just some observations in the past few months I have seen on ESPN that they like to report rumors, then talk about them, then refute them a few days later as a way to have something to talk about on the slow news days. I think we can all agree that other then during major events like Super Bowl week, NCAA Tourney time, weekends with football and golf and baseball all going on, there are plenty of days when not much happens in sports other then regular games for whatever time of the year it is. Maybe they don't need 2 full time channels going all day every day to talk about the minutiae of sports, and no, some random free agent signing with some random team is not news. Show the scores and the highlights and then show some old games or something, we don't need well dressed ex basketball players sitting around a table breaking down the Football draft or the Hockey playoffs. Some of the recent headlines that caught my eye that ESPN reported on their ticker as "NEWS"
-ESPN reports that Ben Roethlisberger will not be traded by Pittsburgh as previously reported by ESPN affiliate in Pittsburgh.
ESPN reports that Duke's Coach K has no interest in coaching the Cavaliers refuting a rumor previously reported on ESPN that he might.
ESPN reports that an earlier report that someone from the Bulls has contacted Phil Jackson about possibly coaching in Chicago next year, was untrue according to sources close to Jackson.
-Rumors that the NCAA would expand the Basketball tournament to 96 teams and open up the contract bidding to include, (you guessed it) ESPN, turned out to be false, after 3 weeks of debate and argument about whether expanding to the tournament to 96 teams would be good or not, most of the time talking about was spent on ESPN.
-Big Ten Presidents and the Commissioner denied reports that the Big Ten is going to expand anytime soon, despite ESPN rumors for a week that Texas, Notre Dame, Austria-Hungary, the USSR, Florida, the Lakers, Missouri, Nebraska, and the Raiders were all going to join the Big Ten soon and then spent the requisite hours and days breaking down and discussing what it would mean and how it would effect every one's lives if any or all of them joined, and then it didn't happen and won't for a while.
Shocking. I guess it is easier to waste time opining and guessing then actually breaking down what happened in the real games. They should create a separate channel called Pre-ESPN to do nothing but predict and guess so they can totally avoid talking about what really happens. Maybe next year someone should track their predictions on games and trades and coaching changes and see what percent actually happen.....hmmmm, sounds like a job for a skilled journalist, we'll see if we have any around here in time for football season...