1) Forums and blogs (and things like twitter). As a news site, you are competing with forums, blogs, twitter and the like. Therefore, there is pressure to give VERY FAST news response in order to be considered a useful source of information.

2) Fight fans are hungry for rumors. They aren’t necessarily wanting accurate information all the time. This sounds illogical, but it’s quite true. The rumor mill provides lots of fuel for conversation. It makes the fight fan feel as though they are in the middle of the latest breaking news, even if much of it isn’t even true. They want to know all of the rumors swirling around so they can make their own judgements. If there is some rumor that Dana White got genital warts during an affair with Josh Barnett’s girlfriend, many fight fans want to know about that rumor, even if it’s a ridiculous one.

3) The biggest problem here is when people read a rumor and then begin to talk about it as if it HAS supporting evidence already. Irresponsible writing can further confuse the situation. When a news reporter is referring to a rumor, there has to be a VERY CLEAR AND UNQUESTIONABLE distinction between a rumor and confirmed information. Many writers (and radio show hosts) get fuzzy with handling that. I’ve seen this on all of MMA news sites. If a radio show or news article goes on and on and on and on about a rumor, then that tends to have a lasting effect in the minds of readers/listeners. “If it’s merely a rumor, then why would they spend so much time on it? Maybe they know something we don’t.” Merely spending time discussing a rumor can seem to substantiate it.

4) I do like the idea of a dynamically updated article (as mentioned above) that covers breaking news. Cross out the stuff that’s been confirmed as false. Append the new information. Rinse. Repeat.

In theory, the biggest distinction between a MMA news site and a fan-driven forum/blog/twitter is that the MMA news site does the legwork to confirm information. If they don’t do that, then there is no difference. Still, they cannot ignore rumors. They should cover as many of them as possible, but handle them appropriately and responsibly. When covering news, you are building a relationship with the readers. There should be a reason for them to trust you.

Personally, I usually make a note if there’s a substantial, factual change, though I do forget every once in a while.

If a writer posts an article that is time sensitive breaking news and it ends up having some errors in it how should writers be fixing or updating their article?

I have seen cases where the writer has just changed the article without noting the changes. I have seen them just write a whole new article but not take down the original containing the wrong information. As a reader I like it when a writer notes the changes with updates so I know what had been reported first and then can see where the story ended up.