How Rumors Travel

Listeners to NBC's key Manhattan station, WEAF, one day last week heard Newscaster Don Goddard say: "... a rumor came bounding into the newsroom. Emperor Hirohito is one of those in Japan who has committed harakiri. ..."

None of the wire services from whom NBC gets its news had reported any such thing. Next day, red-faced NBC first said that somehow or other Goddard had picked it up from a "reliable private source"; then added that, after all, it was only a rumor, and had been so qualified.

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