Snuck

Trump's high-top sneakers sell out hours after launch

Personally, this seems more like an advertisement for Brand Trump than something that would be filed under "Politics & Policy," but maybe that's just me. Presuming that this is a legitimate news story, what I would like to know is: What are the sources? As near as I can tell, the only way the Axios reporter knows that the shoes are sold out is that they went to the website, and saw the "Sold Out" stamp on the picture of the shoes.

But that's not proof that the shoes are sold out. Only that they've been marked as such. Granted, with the ability to buy three pairs at a time, only a few hundred people needed to make purchases to buy the 1,000 pairs reportedly available for sale.

Still, anyone can go to a website, see a "Sold Out" stamp, and then come up with two hundred words. Axios didn't even seem to bother looking into the company that's reportedly selling the shoes, "CIC Ventures LLC." (Which, according to one X sleuth, is headquartered at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.) Instead, they simply copy and paste a statement from the website seeking to put some distance the business and Donald Trump.

This isn't a story, it's journalistic filler. Which I get. After all, filler content is cheaper than material that actually takes work to put together. But it seems like part of the death spiral that news outlets find themselves in.