It’s not unusual to see Big News in the morning, and by noon have it evaporate as having been a wrong rumor that finally blew away. What’s unusual is for a Big News rumor to start in the morning and still be there at night… and to have it be non-existent in the major media.

Take, for instance, the news that broke this morning that Bashir Assad, dictator of Syria, had been shot dead by one of his own bodyguards. A number of secondary and tertiary news sources were reporting this this morning, but not, say, CNN or the Bbc.

Breaking Report: Assad Shot By Bodyguard – Hospitalized in Damascus

By this evening, the rumor had been “confirmed” by some of those minor news organizations, but still nothing from the bigs. Not even a mention of the rumor to shoot them down.

Assad Confirmed Dead, Iran Attempts To Control Syria Army

Admittedly, anytime a news article is based on Russian or Arab sources skepticism is called for, kinda like taking a televangelist at his word when he reports that the face of Jesus miraculously appeared on his bank account statement. But still, the rumor is very specific, easily shot down if untrue, and if true would be terribly important. So… nothing?