Everyone Thought Terry Bradshaw Died In 2007

Remember the good old days, when our memes were easy to follow and the internet was filled with celebrity death hoaxes on a daily basis? Those "good old days" were actually around 2007, which is specifically the time we'll be exploring here.

Back in that late 2000s era, it seemed like every day TMZ or Perez Hilton was floating that a celebrity may have died. Sometimes these would start on deep message board pages, and work their way up to those sites quickly. Other scenarios were simple misunderstandings. Which is actually where we find this story.

In January of 2007, it was a typical day in Shreveport. The morning started with some radio reports of traffic slowdowns being caused by an accident on 3132 in the city, and that was picked up by a couple of local TV stations. As they published their reports online, they referred to 3132 by its more common name in the Shreveport-Bossier area, the Terry Bradshaw Passway.

This is where things got sideways. A burgeoning online football outlet, Pro Football Talk, must have had Google News notifications setup for names like Terry Bradshaw. So when the news report of an accident with a fatality on the Terry Bradshaw Passway triggered that alert, Pro Football Talk went into "more important to be first than right" mode, and posted a story that Terry Bradshaw may have died in Shreveport.

Now is where the snake starts eating its tail. Once other sports outlets pick up the Pro Football Talk story, it trickles back to Shreveport media, who then report the Pro Football Talk report that Terry Bradshaw may have died.

What might be the most infuriating about the whole thing, is the revisionist history that Pro Football Talk has pushed about the event. They spin it now as the Shreveport media having the story wrong from the start, and tricking them into believing it. Which doesn't seem to be the case at all. It actually would appear that not understanding there's a road called the Terry Bradshaw Passway in Shreveport is what tripped them up. Instead of doing a quick search, they decided to post a story first, search for verification later.

Thankfully there are a few who have revisited the story since, and have taken a harder look at the way Pro Football Talk spins it, and have realized the Shreveport media probably weren't to blame here.