Soon after the rumours started: A man was stabbed...a man was dead... an Everton fan had been stabbed by a Liverpool fan... two Everton fans had been stabbed... one Everton fan was dead, another fighting for life..you get the picture*.
I was tracking the story across Twitter and Facebook, and I couldn't believe what some people were posting - without a shred of evidence that anyone was stabbed, let alone dead.
I thought Storify might be a good way to illustrate bow what started out as a crowd announcement became - in the space of around 30 minutes - a massive swirl of misinformation culminating in an RIP tribute page on Facebook.(Update: The Storify embedded in this post doesn't seem to show up in rss readers)
Interestingly, we were tweeting the official police confirmation that a man had been assaulted at the King Harry pub, but the noise of the networks swept the grains of truth away without regard. I also found a Mirror journalist at the game had asked a policeman, who was refreshingly off-message, but still rumours flew back and forth. 'Everton fan stabbed to death' tweets were still being posted after 11pm and no doubt they will continue tomorrow.
* This was what happened
Police appeal for witnesses after fan suffers broken jaw in attack before Merseyside derby http://bit.ly/fRsKr9
Liverpool Echo
LivEchonews
Liverpool EchoLivEchonews
And how the next day's Echo carried the story on the front page:
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