Former University of Tennessee and current University of Southern California head coach Lane Kiffen tells the LA Times that money was never discussed during a brief flirtation between UT and the Newton family.

Various media reports over the last week have indicated that the former Florida and current Auburn quarterback was looking for $200,000 to attend his next university after playing on the JUCO level in 2009.

Those reports centered around allegations that a former Mississippi State player has ties to the Newton family and would be able to deliver Cam Newton to his alma mater for the right price.

What followed has been a flurry of media reports that have accused Cam Newton of academic violations and personal phone calls admitting disappointment to a "recruiter" at Mississippi State that Newton had to sign with Auburn University because, "the money was too much."

The question is, how much of the reports are factual? Each report sites a "source" or "sources" but lacks few if any facts backing up the claims.

WAPI's Matt Murphy and Leland Whaley each host four-hour-long radio shows... Murphy 6-10AM and Whaley 10-2PM. While WAPI is home to the Auburn network, neither personality specializes in sports talk radio.

But the airwaves of WAPI have been dominated with Newton's name nearly as much as sister station WJOX.

Murphy and Whaley are trying to discuss the reports with a fresh perspective, not so much focusing on if Cam Newton or family members did anything wrong, but looking at how the story has evolved and is being reported.

Murphy says, "There’s a story inside of the story and that is how this story broke prematurely because of the competition to be first instead of right."

Whaley adds, "It's gut check time for the field of professional journalism because those that are held to that standard that can be fired whose livelihoods and reputations are on the line are having to compete with the speed of the blog, and Twitter, and Facebook and try to get stories out. Now, it's becoming more egregious to be late than to be wrong for some of these people and that really leaves the public confused."

That's not to say that social media doesn't have its place in the fast paced world of reporting... but both men agree that the consumer needs to understand the difference between the expectations placed on a blogger and a professional.

And the mainstream media needs to remember its own code of ethics and not allow those ethics to be compromised by trying to break a story ahead of the bloggers.

Whaley explains, "I think they're all competing with each other for the attention of the consumer. And, the bloggers are working on the theory that where there's smoke, there's fire. But sometimes where there's fire there's an arsonist or somebody with an ulterior motive. Professional journalists understand that and will continue to dig. These bloggers don't. They'll go with the smoke and create a fire of their own."

Murphy adds, "The blogs are wonderful things. blogs are great things to filter information to get information out to the people but they are dangerous things and we seem to be very lax with what we're doing with people’s lives and that's the problem I have with this story."