Tonight, there was a whole lot of hubbub about Twitter, again. Earlier in the day, word had come down via reports like this one from WIRED’s Noah Shachtman that the Marines were banning the service, among other social networking platforms, from its network(s). (As an aside, check out what Gomes has to say about that…) The NFL has also put the block lockdown on the service (though not necessarily specifically just Twitter, but use of devices that can communicate online in a number of ways) and the WaPo’s Mark Maske, among others, report that the League will have a formal policy coming very soon.
But the coup de grâce was the story from NPR stating that that ESPN had laid down the law on use of Twitter by employees, most specifically on-air hosts and writers — by detailing what they should (or shouldn’t) be doing on said sites, whether through personal accounts or not. Mashable’s Jennifer Van Grove had some not-so-nice things to say about the network’s move, and she cites Chris Brogan, who calls out the network (and its @espn feed that offers links to ESPN.com stories). It should be noted that ESPN’s not saying you can’t post about anything non-work related, which is frankly the stuff that I don’t think I’m alone in stating is the most interesting stuff to read from famous people, on-air talent, and so on. Hell, I get more of a kick out of the Starbucks-drinking habits of adult film stars than anything “work related” that they might post. Oh, that’s right, most of them use Twitter for the same reasons we do, to complain about airport delays, what they just had for lunch, why traffic sucks, and so on. You know, the stuff that I would get a kick out of seeing my favorite SportsCenter anchor talk about, just because it’s realistic. They just say that they’ll be held accountable for anything they say on Twitter. You know, like the rest of us who have employers who know what they’re doing.
While I can appreciate the interest of getting the story going after ESPN’s own Ric Bucher tweeted about the policy itself and a ton of facts weren’t necessarily available, and the story was “ongoing,” I found it more than slightly disappointing that no one seemed to reach out to anyone involved with the situation, e.g. a PR person at ESPN, a trusted source at the company, or something along those lines. Isn’t it possible that something got “lost in translation” as this got out there and bloggers started picking up on it? What, we’re going to start distilling opinions and attitudes based on 140 characters or less, and just move on? I know, I know, I get it, I get it. Sometimes the story is what the story appears to be, and we all move on.
But dig around for five minutes, and you’ll catch the memo floating around a little bit. Deadspin had it up earlier tonight, and you can read it here. Before finding it, and after deciding I’d write about this subject tonight, I reached out to ESPN PR about it, frankly just for the sake of actually doing so because, like, why not get the other side of the story? It took me all of thirty seconds to find their email address via Google.
In any case, Deadspin’s AJ Daulerio also had some not-so-hot things to say about the policy, which I won’t pass judgment on just yet as we don’t know what else is going on behind the scenes, and frankly, because I’ve seen the other side of this and can’t say that ESPN is wrong to believe they need to go in this direction. Am I thrilled with it and do I think they will get slapped around for it publicly? I’m not, and they are – and will probably continue to be for a bit.
That said, will ya look at what happens once someone reaches out to ESPN’s PR for a comment or additional detail? The New York Times‘ Richard Sandomir wrote about this fray tonight, stating that the guidelines “restrict the freedom that ESPN employees might previously have enjoyed,” but states the facts in the case. More importantly, I think he, along with ESPN spokesperson Chris LaPlaca, drop dime on the point of it all – letting ESPN have some level of control over what WORK-RELATED things that journalists, on-air analysts and announcers, along with online, broadcast and print writers can say, as themselves, online.
Let’s see if this other example makes sense to any of you. If I write exclusively for newspaper X, and instead of posting all of my scoops through the newspaper FIRST, even if that means dropping short blog posts online in this day and age, I post them on my personal blog, and then publish the stories minutes / hours / the next day through my employer, who effectively financed the research and time that went into the story, aren’t I doing a disservice to my employer? Locking and loading that story, and having some level of understanding with my employer that at 10pm I could publish a short item on Twitter saying “my story going live at midnight tonight talks about XYZ company, and so on,” makes much more sense, doesn’t it? Again, I’m not saying this is 100% correct and the best answer, but it’s some level of happy medium and reasonable expectation.
Mind you, Ric Bucher might have the contacts he has because he’s Ric Bucher, but ESPN is paying him to be said Ric Bucher on their airwaves, online, or in their print magazine, no? Is Ric Bucher’s use of Twitter to comment on an NBA item that he might never mention on air at some point a good thing for ESPN in the long term? ABSOLUTELY. Does ESPN have the right to ask Bucher to stay away from work-related topics outside the lines of ESPN-”world?” I think they just might.
What’s key here is that ESPN is looking out for itself. As talent-related content is posted on Twitter.com, people’s Facebook statuses, via text messages, and so on, they “lose” that traffic. They ABSOLUTELY gain mindshare by having their talent “outside” the box, per se, and hopefully people recognize that they’re following on-air talent or their favorite online writers on Twitter, etc., and link those individuals to their employer. But it’s a tough line to figure out and ESPN is attempting to figure out what it needs to do in this particular case. According to the last graf of Sandomir’s article, ESPN does appear to be aiming at getting to a place where Bucher’s tweets about pending NBA trades COULD land on Twitter, but would also land somewhere on ESPN, perhaps in a breaking feed or something like that. If that’s ultimately the case, then maybe we’re just at a temporary standoff here.
In any case, ESPN is by no means stating that its talent can use Twitter, Facebook, et al, at all. It’s relatively specific to job-related stuff. These two points (from the policy at the above-linked-to Deadspin) are kind of key, however. The latter I think is more interesting.
- Avoid discussing internal policies or detailing how a story or feature was reported, written, edited or produced and discussing stories or features in progress, those that haven’t been posted or produced, interviews you’ve conducted, or any future coverage plans.
- Steer clear of engaging in dialogue that defends your work against those who challenge it and do not engage in media criticism or disparage colleagues or competitors.
I get how people wouldn’t want criticism of “the editor cut out my favorite part” kind of stuff out there, but “future coverage plans” is kind of a possible missed area. I mean, saying “It’s really interesting that the A’s are going down this road with their trades, I’m thinking of looking into it” or whatever seems kind of silly to halt. The second bullet is curious – sure, you don’t want your writers getting in drag-on battles about how they’re biased or not biased vs. the Yankees, but is it the end of the world for someone to say that they did XYZ in order to make sure they got the whole story? I don’t see how that’s any different from a reporter/columnist calling into a sports talk radio station, and being criticized about a column they’d written, and stating their case. It’s their job to be opinionated. Why not let them do so in the most awesomely transparent forum, online? Again, I think most reporters and on-air talent that have adopted technologies like Twitter have done a pretty good job grasping when and when not to delve into responses. Just my $.02.
At the end of the day, I think that this is a very situation-by-situation thing. For example – last Friday, I hit up SI’s Jon Heyman for tweeting about the Victor Martinez deal to the Red Sox before going on air on the MLB Network on Friday. I had found it curious in that the on-air reports weren’t going anywhere near the story that he (and a couple of others, moments later) had been buzzing about on Twitter, for a few minutes. Then, there was Jon Heyman on the air to discuss the completion of the deal. Pretty cool, right? If it were an ESPN reporter, and this policy were in place and they were sitting off-camera, about to go on ESPN’s air, would they have been able to post on Twitter about it? Maybe. What if we got to a point where said tweets actually drove people to turn on the MLB trade deadline coverage? Could happen. But was it good for SI that Heyman is out there doing this? Given that SI doesn’t have its own “channel” like MLB or ESPN does, perhaps it’s the way go to. That said, Heyman’s Twitter account is SI_JonHeyman, so he’s also clearly identified as an employee, and posting about things related to his job directly. It appears that “breaking” stories, at least the granular stuff like trades on trade deadline day, is an acceptable use for him.
Having a policy is FAR BETTER than having zero policy. People knowing what the line IS vs. what it isn’t is better, no? Will people test the limits of it? I think we’ve already seen that happen. Will this get worked out? Absolutely. ESPN’s a smart organization, and I think they’re trying to make a smart decision here. Would it be more fun if @espn did more than post links to stories? Sure, but let’s take a couple steps forward here, not jump off the cliff, okay?
