Alexander Isak contract story gathers traction as outlet posts second story today aimed to unsettle Newcastle United

A report has surfaced saying that Alexander Isak has rejected a contract offer from Newcastle United - here we go!

So, here I was sifting through the internet when I came across a story from Caught Offside saying that Newcastle had shelved contract talks with Alexander Isak.

That immediately got my back up because those talks were shelved months ago and are expected to resume at the end of the season - Newcastle fans know this already.

It felt very much like a story created purely to bait Newcastle fans into a rage for clicks on their story. I rose to the bait and wrote a story calling it out, but then I bottled it and deleted it as I was calling out the story's author by name. That didn't sit right with me, even though I did try to give him the benefit of the doubt that he was just reporting what he'd been told.

Mainstream media pick up on stories from online outlets and run with them, we need to be better

The piece centred around how mainstream media are the worst offenders when it comes to writing stories that seem to be expressly designed to sew discontent, but there are smaller, web-based outlets that do it too.

But I had a crisis of conscience and thought about how we writers can interpret things differently to our readers and while things may come off as inflammatory or rage-bait, they may not have been to have been intended that way by the author.

So, I deleted it. But then, as I went back to look for another story to cover, this piece from Caught Offside has been picked up by the mainstream media, namely The Express, who are pushing it with a more severe headline that Alexander Isak has rejected Newcastle's proposals. While the Caught Offside story does indeed say something similar, you can see the difference here - talks shelved versus rejected contract.

The original piece could be a regurgitated story resurrected to provoke reaction

Nothing in Caught Offside's piece provides any kind of timeline, so for all we know, they are just regurgitating a story from months ago when the talks were actually shelved, just to create some content.

It can't be ignored that the original author of the piece is an Arsenal fan, too. Far be it for me to accuse the man of having an agenda, but, come on!

The briefest of Google searches would have shown that the contract talks between Alexander Isak and Newcastle have been on hold since last year and aren't set to be revived until the end of the season.

This is just rage-baiting at its finest, but now it has been picked up by mainstream media it has the chance of blowing up far more than it has any reason to.

Just be careful out there and apply some common sense to each story you read. Even ours, we can absolutely get things wrong.