One of the nifty and fun things about the internet is that you can witness events in close to real-time, from anywhere in the world! We’re all connected, just a split second away from breaking news. It’s true!

This month, we’re being treated to the thrilling spectacle of seeing America’s fourth estate crumble under the weight of poor ad rates and the disappearance of the classified market.

A contributing factor – let’s all admit it, folks – is the instant swiping of any real work that newspapers do within minutes by aggregators and bloggers (as many papers start to try to start playing that same game themselves, five years too late). A newspaper breaks something? Bang-o, the critical items are copied ten other places, where other sites profit from the information, and the journalist makes zip.

It’s especially interesting to view here in Cleveland, where the struggles of the local media have been accelerated by the mercilessly secretive reign of terror under new head coach Eric Mangini.

As we warned Browns owner Randy Lerner, closing out the already short-handed mainstream media will give increased power and heft to people to throw out any old thing and have it stick.

I didn’t even expect it to happen this fast. I thought we would have a few more months.

But, no.

Outside the confines of the OBR, it almost seems like the Cleveland media is boycotting the free agency season. Any player visit in the non-subscriber eye was broken by out-of-town sources: Chris Carr by The Tennessean, James Butler by the New Jersey Star-Ledger, Andre Goodman by the Miami Herald. Cleveland articles have only been pointing back to those other newspapers as sources.

Think about it for a minute: How much money do you figure the Miami Herald made off that article on CB Andre Goodman? Other than the few thousand people who read John Taylor’s post a day ahead of the Herald, most fans learned about it via Google News, Pro Football Talk, Rotowhatever, or the Cleveland papers.

The other day,I saw a blogger commenting on the James Butler story with a link to one local paper. That local paper had pulled it from another local paper. That local paper pulled it from the Herald. Three serial regurgitations.

I’m guessing that blogger wasn’t giving a slice of his Google ad revenue to the Miami Herald. And I’m damn sure the newspaper sites aren’t.

Seriously, why would an ad-supported news site even bother to spend time and money breaking news? They maybe get 10% of the page views for breaking the story. Info-scavengers get the rest.

The information eco-system is upside down.

So, I thought that was the low point.

But it’s not. There were even better surprises in store.

It came today, due mostly to the paucity of any meaningful Browns news coming out of Berea, which gives increased heft to rumors, as we predicted.

If you remember back, oh, twelve hours ago, we talked about a crazy ass rumor tossed out on a fan site from “a source”, saying the Browns were going to deal Brady Quinn and Shaun Rogers to the Broncos for Jay Cutler and a draft pick.

Most people obsessive and deranged enough to read this site know that trades aren’t free. It’s not like handing your Quinn and Rogers football cards for a 2008 Jay Cutler.

I put some duct-tape around my brain and figured out the cap impact today. Dealing Quinn and Rogers, assuming no new contracts, would give the Browns more than eight million in additional dead cap space for 2009.

That assumes the Browns make the deal before any roster bonuses are paid to Quinn and Rogers this year. If not, then add those to the dead cap pile.

Then you have to pay Jay Cutler, which would be another million at the very least, if you don’t re-do his contract. BTW, he gets a $4 million roster bonus next year.

So, let’s figure you just burned $10 million - slightly less than half your cap space on a team with many holes - to swap Quinn and Rogers for Cutler. That’s a little less than 10% of your total cap space to make that swap. At least that leaves 90% for the other 50 guys.

Wow. Hey. Brilliant move.

Um, er… okay. I guess you would really have to like Cutler or really not like Brady Quinn.

Of course, there are plenty of other ludicrous elements of the story, which included the notion that Rogers has demanded a trade (no, he hasn’t), and that Mangini likes gun-slinging quarterbacks (two words: “Brett Favre”).

Even if there’s a kernel of truth to the story, the errors in the blog post are enough to set off blinding rocket flares for anyone who knows what’s going on in Cleveland.

But this doesn’t matter. This morning, Pro Football Talk linked it up. They were mocking and self-aware of how it would be misinterpreted, but posted it anyway. So, you know, it’s not their fault when it later gets relayed as “Pro Football Talk is saying”.

Even better, Yahoo Sports posted the item with a complete and utter straight face. Then it shows up on the Akron Beacon-Journal.

Are you laughing yet? Because this is some funny stuff.

OK. Give it a couple more hours, and now you have Browns fans in comment threads to Plain Dealer articles who are writing about it like it’s a real story and zinging Tony Grossi for reporting on this Chris Carr silliness rather than an important story like the Cutler trade.

I’m not sure that Stalinist Russia could have carried off a more effective disinformation campaign. Well done, internets.

If this is happening in sports journalism, I shudder to think what’s going on with stories that actually matter.

This will be a lot funnier, I swear, after I suck down a large quantity of very cheap Kentucky bourbon. Which I think, at this point, I really, really need to do.