Week 3 Post

Twitter is the new ESPN.

Once upon a time in sports journalism history, if you heard a rumor, the first place you’d go running to check the validity of a story would be ESPN. You’d flip to the channel, sit through other stories on the rundown, waiting for the one you cared about. And there it’d be, confirmed, of course.

In this day in age, when you hear a rumor, the first place you check is Twitter. Joe Paterno has died. The Phillies are trading Cole Hamels. Usain Bolt is signing with Manchester United. You hear the rumor; you run to Twitter. Yet while it eliminates the waiting game a television broadcast brought, the competition to break a story first, faster, muddies the water. As Hancherick talked about in his article, reporters try to confirm sources before breaking a story on Twitter the same way they would confirm sources before a television broadcast or publishing an article. But when reporters don’t, the ethics take a backseat.

As Salwen explained, the problems facing journalists today have changed with the times. A story will be broken on ESPN after one of their journalists breaks the story on Twitter. While many are fast to point out the negatives of Twitter and the ethical dilemmas it presents journalists in order to break the story first, Twitter also provides information faster and more directly. Authors can post a tweet before a 500 word story can be written, before a two minute video package can be produced, or before the press can print a spread. It has most certainly changed the profession, as both Salwen and Hancherik argue, but for both the better and the worse.