Guys, don’t send in scoops that originate at Cinemablend. I won’t run the stories. Why? Because while sites get scoops wrong all the time, Cinemablend ALWAYS gets them wrong. Why, if I wasn’t such a forgiving person I’d think they make these things up.

The latest bullshit rumor the site was peddling was that Judd Apatow was producing or otherwise directly involved in making Ghostbusters 3. This is just not true, it never was true, and I suspect it never will be true. Don’t believe me?

“It’s not true,” says Doug Belgrad, president of Columbia Pictures. “We have some great new writers working on a new script, but Judd isn’t involved. Judging from the frenzy on the Internet, there still seems to be plenty of interest in the idea of doing another film, so we’re certainly taking that as a good sign.”

That bit of information comes because Patrick Goldstein simply made a couple of phone calls and asked. Jesus, the people who write on the web can be embarrassing sometimes.

Why is Ghostbusters 3 such a nexus for bad rumors being passed as fact? Remember when Seth Rogen was going to be in the film last year? Talking to him at the junket for Zack & Miri Make a Porno he said he had never been offered the role – and that he thought the movie itself was a bad idea. That doesn’t sound like someone who is lying to the press. It sounds like the press is lying to the public.

Obviously not every scoop is verifiable. And obviously suits and publicists sometimes lie to your face when you’re trying to get confirmation. But a story like this is one that would be eminently verifiable. To my colleagues on the web: please stop running these kinds of stories without verification. And please stop linking to them.