The news flashed across Chicago, landing most emphatically on the city’s South Side. From there it reverberated to Philadelphia and New York, then made a U-turn and swept all the way cross country to Los Angeles:

Manny Machado, the heralded free-agent shortstop, was at the Bears’ N.F.L. playoff game against the Eagles.

But wait; there was more. That was only part of this startling news development. Machado, the widespread reports rang out, was at the game with Jerry Reinsdorf, chairman of the White Sox.

What could this possibly mean, White Sox fans and others wondered. Only one thing. Reinsdorf was going to leave Soldier Field with Machado’s signature on a White Sox contract or at least a handshake agreement.

Alas, the report turned out to be fictitious. “Jerry was in Arizona on Sunday,” Scott Reifert, the team’s senior vice president for communications, told me last week. And then he thanked me for asking, a response that suggested to me that few others, if any, had asked before running with the report.

Sadly, that is what reporting has come to today. Hear something and, no matter how outrageous it might be, tweet it. Only one thing seems to matter in the Twitter world: be first with whatever it is on your Twitter account.

Don’t waste time making telephone calls to check the verity of a report. Shoot first and ask questions later. If you turn out to be wrong, you can always delete it. It’s only the Internet. It’s like Emily Litella used to say on “Saturday Night Live” when she confused something: “Never mind.”

I can’t blame reporters for all of this nonsense. You don’t have to be a reporter to tweet something. That, of course, only makes it worse. It creates open season on nonsense. In the Machado case, I don’t know who the culprit was.

According to Reifert, a veteran public relations man, “The guy who posted it claims to have 700 followers on Barstool but he took it down.” Then Reifert added, “It went back up.”

And it flooded the Twitter waves.

• “Chuck Naso, who works for Barstool, tweeted that Machado is at the Bears-Eagles playoff game with White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf. He then deleted the tweets and the information was re-posted from their podcast account, Red Line Radio.”
• “According to people close to the Bears Manny Machado is currently in a box at the Bears game with Jerry Reinsdorf.”
• “Is Manny Machado at the Bears game with Jerry Reinsdorf?” Dan Santaromita of NBC Sports Chicago asked.
• “A potentially exciting rumor for White Sox fans says Manny Machado is at the Bears game. If that’s believable.”
• “Baseball’s free agency this winter has led to fans frothing at the mouth at any potential bit of news or any lead on the future destinations of Manny Machado and Bryce Harper.”
• “This latest Manny Machado twitter rumor sounds exciting if it turns out to be true.”
• “Obviously, if Machado were in fact at the game with Reinsdorf that’d be a good sign for the White Sox. Unfortunately, he was not.”
• “The fact that it would be odd for no one else to spot the pair together going to the luxury boxes at Soldier Field cast some doubt right away.”
• “Sorry to say it, but I’ve been told that the rumor that Jerry Reinsdorf watched the Bears game with Manny Machado at Soldier Field is not true.”

It took a tweet from the veteran Chicago baseball writer Phil Rogers to put the report to rest.

“In White Sox/Bears/free agency news, please know Jerry Reinsdorf did not attend the Eagles-Bears game, with or without Manny Machado. Would have made a great story, though.”

If it were only fans who tweeted, that would be bad enough, but reporters have adopted the system in a big way. In today’s coverage format, the only thing that counts is who tweeted the signing first. Sometimes I get the feeling that someone is keeping track of how many firsts each reporter has.

Being first with a story can be important, but being accurate and comprehensive with a developing issue is more important. Some reporters feel that when they are first with some aspect of a story, they have done their job and are finished. Not so. There are almost always other details to learn.

I don’t know if I would have made it in the world of tweets.

OUR READERS CAN READ AND WRITE

The recent column on collusion prompted mail with complaints I have heard for years about players’ salaries. I understand the reasons for the complaints, but I will try to explain why I think the complaints are misguided. In reading my explanations, please do not mistake me as a shill for the owners. They would laugh at that thought.

Paul Herbert Hartman of Lewisburg, Pa., wrote:

Much is focused on the poor free agent players who may or may not put bread on the table over the Winter, as they fret about having a job, etc. The rest is focused on the beleaguered owners who are trying to make a buck while remaining competitive.

Where is the focus on your audience, the FANS? We are the third party, always, to the dear Players Union and the Owners. The latter two fuss and fume over salaries and contracts while we, the Fans, are treated as sideline viewers.

Salaries go up at our expense. Ticket prices go up at our expense. We pay for new baseballs, new uniforms, Umpire retirement plans, new stadia for the Owners as well as sky high prices for parking, hot dogs and beer!

No one forces the owners to pay the players what they ask for or demand. Neither the players nor their agents put a gun to an owner’s head. The players are worth whatever the owners are willing to pay them. As long as the owners act legally, the players have no legitimate complaint. If they don’t like what one club offers, try a different team.

Let me disabuse fans of another misconception. If the players don’t get the money in salaries and contracts, who gets the millions of dollars the clubs receive from various sources? Major League Baseball has become an industry that brings in more than $10 billion a year. If the players, who are primarily responsible for that revenue, don’t get their share of it, who should get it? The owners? Why? They already get their share, and these days it’s going up.

Fans don’t pay to see Hal Steinbrenner run the Yankees. They pay to see Giancarlo Stanton play for the Yankees.

Another reader disagreed with my suspicion of a new owners’ game of collusion. I don’t mind readers having a different point of view, especially when they support their case with intelligent reasons, as Barry Spiegel of Peoria, Ariz., did:

The informed GM or owner – now infused with data that shows the ordinary nature of the veteran pitcher – simply says ‘no, thanks.’ No collusion – just informed decision making. And possibly the chance to see a lower priced player prove his value – or exceed it.

I believe attorneys would now say, ‘and feel free to try to prove otherwise.’

Analytics changes things, and I suspect the silence of Tony Clark reflects this. He is a smart guy, smart enough to know that in court, they refer to analytics as evidence.

Samuel Ackah sent the most provocative e-mail. I don’t remember the last time I wrote about Barry Bonds, but Mr. Ackah remembers my view of Bonds very well:

Close to a decade later and your mind still can’t grasp that Bonds deserved to be a first ballot hall-of-famer. You don’t really understand what it means to hold a vote that counts for something meaningful, and shouldn’t really need you. Every day he stays out, the baseball hall of fame becomes less meaningful, as does your “power.”

First, let me say I don’t consider that I have any power. I have been one voter among 400 or 500 and have joined many others in not voting for the most successful cheater and liar in the history baseball. I have never voted for him and never will.

Unfortunately, Bud Selig’s election to the Hall of Fame in 2016 helped pave the way for Bonds and Roger Clemens to be elected while they are still on the writers’ ballot. Many writers figured if Selig could be elected despite his blatant failure to do anything about steroids while he was commissioner, Bonds and Clemens could be elected even if they used steroids.

Both players climbed to the mid-50 percent range last year after never having reached 50 percent and have three years of eligibility remaining if they don’t make it this month.

But, Mr. Ackah, Bonds won’t be getting my vote. Nor will Clemens, for that matter. There are enough bad guys in the Hall of Fame without letting them in.

Back to e-mail. Edward Nadel tossed out two ideas. In one, he said, “Maybe it would have been better to have all players free agents. Free agent salaries are a bit obscene.” When free agency was being negotiated in 1976 following arbitrator Pete Seitz’s grievance ruling, Charlie Finley, maverick owner of the Oakland Athletics, suggested to the owners that very idea.

Finley’s idea scared Marvin Miller, the players’ labor leader. Miller knew that such a plan would flood the market with free agents and dilute their value. Fortunately for the union, the other owners hated Finley, thought he was crazy and quickly rejected his plan.

Then there was this one, which I’m sure some editor at my former employer, The New York Times, will think I engineered:

Dear Mr. Chass: How come there are no stories in the TIMES on the issue of collusion? Can understand why ESPN shies away from it but you would think the TIMES would air the issues.”

To air the issue, you have to understand the issue, and at one point a few years ago, I was told the Times’ chief baseball writer didn’t understand the issue.