Today’s press conference by NBA Commissioner David Stern confirmed and supported the news that the FBI is investigating NBA referee Tim Donaghy on allegations of betting on basketball games, including ones he officiated, during the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 seasons. Tim Donaghy already resigned on July 9 amidst these allegations. The investigation is ongoing.

I’m a huge fan of the NBA—basketball is one of my favorite sports. But I don’t want to comment here about Tim Donaghy himself or the gambling issues or David Stern or the state of the NBA or the future of the NBA. I want to talk about the amazing online reaction to this particular news story and how it has affected and reflected public opinion.

I’ve been following this news story online, where I’ve found a proliferation of media pieces related to this story, from major news network articles to YouTube videos to bloggers' personal takes and research. Wikipedia even has an entry and current news on Tim Donaghy. It has once again confirmed to me how quickly news travels online and how quickly online media and entities respond and add value to the news stories.

For example, within just a couple of days of this Tim Donaghy betting story hitting the news wires, a number of videos analyzing certain games refereed by Donaghy were put together and published on YouTube, such as this piece analyzing the 2007 Spurs-Suns playoff game 3:

Also on YouTube, an independent sports news show animation was produced, and clips from TV networks covering the story were reproduced.