This Is How Rumors Get Started
By Scott Smith in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 2, 2006 2:30PM
Yesterday, we posted about a piece that ran on Billboard.com regarding a possible Smashing Pumpkins reunion at Lollapalooza. Our curiosity was piqued by one line in particular that said “Chicago media reports” had first carried this speculation. Since we hadn’t seen anything like that, we started doing a little research and sending a few e-mails. What follows is an account of our attempts to track down exactly how stories like this get legs and whether you’re likely to see Billy C. out in Hutchinson Field this summer.
January 30th: Chicagoist posts on a Greg Kot story from January 27th that squashes an ongoing rumor about the Pumpkins playing Coachella. In the post, we wonder if “Corgan is saving himself for one of Chicago’s summer fests” like the Pitchfork Media Festival or Lollapalooza. Later, we post an update that mentions an article by Jim DeRogatis that confirms Lollapalooza will return to Grant Park from August 4-6.
January 31st: Billboard.com runs a story about the frustrations experienced by concert promoter Jam Productions, who are trying to book a similar multi-band festival in Grant Park. The story confirms the Lollapalooza dates and also includes a graf that states “Chicago media reports have suggested a primary target for a [Lollapalooza] headliner is Smashing Pumpkins, who are making rumblings about a reunion.”
February 1st: The World Entertainment News Network, RedEye, Chicagoist and other websites pick up the Billboard piece. Chicagoist starts wondering what other Chicago media outlets carried news about the Pumpkins reunion.
Chicagoist does a Lexis-Nexis search and scours Google News for any mention of a Pumpkins reunion and finds no previous mentions of the rumor. Chicagoist contacts the writer of the Billboard piece to determine the source of the “media reports” and is told an editor inserted the graf on the Pumpkins reunion into the piece.
Chicagoist contacts the editor via email who says he was “told by one of our editors who is from Chicago that he had seen something in the Tribune” about a possible Pumpkins reunion at Lollapalooza. He later acknowledges that “it is very possible the person in question made a mistake about where he saw or heard this” and suggests we get in touch with Corgan’s management or Lollapalooza’s bookers for the full story (Chicagoist received no response from either camp). The editor also opines “it seems pretty logical to me that a reunited Pumpkins would be a primary target for Lollapalooza.”
We agree. But for now, such speculation isn’t any more credible than it was back on January 30th when we first wondered about the possibility.
Incidentally, we hear David Bowie’s headlining Lollapalooza and Jenny Lewis is playing the Pitchfork fest along with the entire Elephant 6 collective. Spread the word.