The story was widely reported, but this comes from NESN, the New England equivalent to New York's SNY.
As the story goes, Tom Davis, a sports editor at the Fort Worth News-Sentinel, tweeted a college basketball prospect, trying to sway him to attend his alma mater, Butler.
This is an instance of something that was covered in class, giving up being a fan to be a journalist. Though he is not directly related to college basketball and does not cover it, I still see it as unprofessional to do something like this.
It is made even more laughable because the kid to whom he tweeted had already been committed to Indiana for 4 months when the tweet was sent. Not that these tweets ever actually sway a player, but it makes the situation even more puzzling.
In my opinion, this is far over the line. There is an etiquette developing on Twitter, and this definitely does not fit into the code. In the same light, it's inappropriate to "fish" for a retweet by saying something like "wow @__________ had an awesome game tonight! what a great player!"
Obviously, it's not some sort of fireable offense, but it would personally change my view of a certain journalist.
I agree that it changes my view of this guy as a journalist. One is allowed to have private opinions about teams, players and being a fan, but it's unprofessional to publicize it. Imagine a journalist who covers politics tweeting that he is voting for a certain candidate; the journalist loses his credibility.
ReplyDeleteAlso, whyyyy can't people understand that tweets are PUBLIC and that if you are going to say something that is potentially controversial, a DIRECT MESSAGE should be used. Ahem, Weiner.
But, I stray. My point is, I completely agree here. Great article!
Why do so many people in the public eye not realize that Twitter can get them in trouble? How many celebrities and whatnot have been chastised for saying something wrong on Twitter? The only time I ever hear anything about Twitter is when someone does something dumb on it! And a journalist incriminating his entire career in ONE post that took 5 seconds to write is awful.
ReplyDeleteGood post. I recently landed on the Twitter page of a sports writer from a smaller paper in Connecticut and he mentions in his bio that he's a big fan of the Yankees. One of his posts was something along the lines of "Hip Hip Jorge!" I just shook my head. Hard to take someone like that seriously.
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