By Ronald Sitton

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Dec. 7) -- Miles will move to Michigan. Nutt will be fired. Tuberville, Bowden and Grobe will become Arkansas' next football coach.

The media's more-or-less unwritten creed not to print lies, rumors or innuendo seems quaint in the world of the 24-hour blogosphere, especially in the sports arena. Why wait when you can speculate and be the first to tell the world know what's going to happen?

In some circles, that's called prognosticating and seems best left to a different type of medium, i.e. the psychic. The public expects psychics to get it right about half the time by sheer blind luck. The public does not lose control of its emotions when the psychic's wrong, because psychics are expected to screw it up, much like the weatherman. That's not casting any blame, just noting that no one knows the future and despite having all the available variables, the best the public can expect rests on an educated guess.

But this isn't about that kind of medium.

Due to the transitory nature of news, the public expects printed publications (i.e. newspapers, magazines) to be more reliable than broadcast publications (i.e. radio, television). When people talk, they're expected to frame information to their benefit regardless of audience, providing one reason for the longevity of politicians and attorneys.

Not to imply broadcast publications cannot be trusted, but once something is printed, the public takes that information as fact regardless of its veracity. That causes most print publications to spend hours verifying information before going to press. When the information isn't verified, ala Jayson Blair or "Dewey defeats Truman," the public seldom hesitates to heap coals on the head of the offending publication.

Why? Because the public uses media to plan lives. How can it make decisions about things that really matter when the decision is based on lies, rumors or innuendo? It cannot.

Problems arise due to the nature of the newest press, the Internet, which allows anybody to pretend they're a journalist. Sure, the public can find good information on the Internet, but that information sits side-by-side on the Information Superhighway with a lot of lies, rumors and innuendo. To further complicate the situation, items on the Internet LOOK like something printed, leading the public to expect fact, expect verification, expect to use said information to choose as wisely as possible when living.

That's why the public turns to respected news outlets to get information about the day's events. For the most part, reliable information can be found at respected news outlets on the Web. Yet on the Internet, the most-respected media outlets have conglomerated resources to produce Web sites containing both printed information, i.e. articles, and broadcast information through podcasts. That mixture should make the public wary, but the public infatuation with its semi-new toy does not imply the public reads the instruction manual to determine how to operate it.

The nature of politics leads the public to take things with a grain of salt. The same can be said of weather forecasts, yet the public understands it's only a forecast. But when it comes to news, publications normally do not print information until after the fact, when the truth can better be ascertained.

But what happens when the respected outlet focuses on sports journalism? The public faces psychics without a license.

The major sports publications, i.e. ESPN and Sports Illustrated, feed the public with its daily fix of scores and changes in the scene. They predict the outcomes of games and report injuries, which the public accepts as many use that information to place wagers in hopes of a holiday payday. When personnel moves occur, they soliloquize on the possible benefits and/or detriments to the involved teams. Once again, the public finds this acceptable as half the fun of sports is every team has a shot at a championship when the records are 0-0 at the beginning of the season.

What's unacceptable is the continuous predictions of where coaches or players may go. These rumors, lies and innuendo not only hurt the publications' reputations, especially when the predictions go awry, but also hurt the teams or programs involved.

It's hard enough to get prepared to play an upcoming opponent without worrying about the coach's future. It's nearly impossible to keep recruits, the lifeline of college athletics, in the fold when there's a coaching change, let alone when "commitments" do not mean anything to athletes who want someone to "show me the money" in some shape, form or fashion.

So why doesn't the public castigate the sports journalist(s) who throw egg in the face of storied programs by noting the inability to immediately find a new leader (e.g. Alabama, Michigan, Arkansas to name a recent few)? After all, these writers contribute to the calamity by ignoring the golden rule of news, i.e. report what's happened, not what you think may happen. (Of course, I'm the pot calling the kettle black.)

Maybe it's due to the public needing the drama providing by the daily sports beat, i.e. not a physical but a mental need. Especially in the Southeast Conference, people nearly live and die depending on their team's fortunes. I'd call the public crazy for accepting mediocrity and acting as if the next hire is akin to the second coming of the Lord.

But then again, I never claimed sanity as one of my best assets.