Adam Schefter just discussed Sean Payton's coaching status

There are so many aspects of this story--hopefully a non-story--that I find distasteful. First of all, it makes the Saints sound like a farm team. Of course, any coach would want to use the Saints as a stepping stone to something bigger and better, which would be any other team in the NFL because New Orleans is a backwater. It is surprising how prevalent this attitude is around the country.

Second, the whole attitude of journalism these days seems to consist of putting out a story with inadequate or indeed non-existent peer review. This kind of sloppiness is being fostered by tweeters and bloggers with no editorial oversight. On this site there is actually higher integrity. If someone posts information, someone else will call for a source, usually a link. In the world of blogs and tweets, however, writers just put stuff out there, often total nonsense or fabrication.

Instead, journalists need to specify whether the stuff is speculation or whether it's actually based on something substantial. If you read "All the President's Men" or saw the movie, you would observe that the reporters' work was subjected to careful scrutiny. Such care is largely absent nowadays.