Yesterday, ESPN NBA analyst Ric Bucher tweeted that ESPN had passed around a memo concerning their employees using social networking website Twitter. The actual tweet:"The hammer just came down, tweeps: ESPN memo prohibiting tweeting info unless it serves ESPN. Kinda figured this was coming."
Immediately, everyone jumped all over ESPN. Justifiably so, if that's really what it was all about. However, Bucher might have jumped the gun a bit. Even more likely, he probably just wasn't able to explain exactly what he meant, while prohibited to only 140 characters at a time.
After asking another ESPN employee about it, I was able to get a little clarification about ESPN's new policy.
They're not actually banning Twitter. They're not prohibiting their employees from talking to people, tweeting about their day, or giving opinions on who to pick for your fantasy team.
The bottom line: hold your sports-related tweets to the same standard that you would the rest of your interaction with the public. If you are working on a story, don't tweet something that you can't confirm. If it's not solid enough to put in a column or to announce on your radio or TV show, then don't say it on Twitter.
While I'd love to bash ESPN, the fact of the matter is that what they're really doing is protecting the fans, teams and players, as well as ESPN itself, and their employees. When someone on the inside breaks news on Twitter, it is sometimes reported s fact, simply because someone with a strong reputation tweeted it. So now, ESPN is simply making sure that their employees understand that their interaction on Twitter is taken a little more seriously than most people, because they are expected to know more than most people about these situations.
In the end, it will just result in a few less speculative tweets, and a few less wild rumors flying around. That's it. You're off the hook for this one, ESPN.
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