Dallas Cowboys receiver Amari Cooper is the latest victim of social media fake news
Attention Dallas Police Department.
Good job.
After a viral rumor about Dallas Cowboys receiver Amari Cooper being the victim of gun violence starting making the rounds Tuesday morning, the Dallas Police Department stepped in and quickly debunked it as #fakenews, via the DPD official Twitter account.
“There has been a tweet going viral that Amari Cooper has been shot in the Dallas area. We have NOT found any validity to that tweet occurring in the city of #Dallas. At this time, there has been NO shooting incident occurring in the city of Dallas.@ChiefHallDPD”
Cooper also chimed on Instagram, debunking it himself.
“That was fake news y’all, everything good over here.”
And this was after former Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant decried the rumors on Twitter after talking to Cooper.
“This world have some real messed up folks in it... coop just text me... I don’t get it.. why would anybody start a rumor like that?? Weirdos seriously.”
It’s over now but damage has been done, thanks seemingly to an erroneous and irresponsible tweet at 12:09 a.m, “Breaking: Amari Cooper shot in Dallas parking garage. Condition unknown right now.”
The twitter user doubled down by saying his source was his brother who was a cop in Fort Worth.
He eventually returned with an apology to Cooper and a retraction, saying he received bad information.
But that was after false alarm bells had gone off across the NFL world, not just in Dallas-Fort Worth.
Calls to the Cowboys, the Frisco and Dallas Police Departments were just part of the story.
Consider the calls to Cooper and his family.
It reminds of recklessness surrounding the tragic death of NBA legend Kobe Bryant last month. That Bryant’s family had to hear about it via social media, thanks to TMZ, was bad enough.
But the false reports of former Lakers teammate Rick Fox being on the helicopter and dying as well made the media responsible for them derelict in their duties.
Can’t even fathom what the families had to go through during those moments of unknowing and the same can be said about those close to Cooper after the rumors started spreading like wildfire on Wednesday.
It’s not okay for the media to act irresponsibly and report news that has not been confirmed and corroborated.
If you hear of tragic news, it’s not okay to just report it on social media.
Who are you to be tweeting so thoughtless and foolhardy about someone’s life?
Do better. Be better.
This story was originally published February 19, 2020 at 3:26 PM.
