Last
week we covered the area of responsible reporting in the Social Media Age –
where the news comes to you, whether you’re ready or not. This week we’ll touch
on Internet responsibility in the sporting atmosphere, where the Olympics and
baseball’s trade deadline have already encountered social media snares with
palpable consequences.
Twitter
Shocks Ryan Dempster, Ryan Dempster Handcuffs the Cubs
I told
you I’d get to my Atlanta Braves sooner than later. Chicago Cubs starting pitcher
Ryan Dempster, currently compiling the best statistics of his career and
preparing for another mammoth payday when he hits free agency this winter, was
all but traded to the Atlanta Braves. In an ironic stroke of bad luck familiar
only to lifelong Atlanta fans, Dempster nixed the trade after learning about it
– not from his agent, not from Chicago – but from Twitter.
“THERE IS NO TRADE. Don’t know where this info
came from,” Dempster tweeted, reportedly infuriated with the Chicago
front-office for not first cluing him in on the news that he’d been shipped out
of town before leaking it to the media. Dempster then invoked his 10-5 rights
(ten years of service time/five years with one team gives a player the ability
to veto any trade) to stick it to the team that was looking to revamp with
younger (and cheaper) talent, saddling them with the rest of his contract and a
disgruntled pitcher. Phrasing it in a way that only an old-school baseball man
could, Chicago Cubs Manager Dale Sveum blamed ‘the
Twitter, the Facebook’ for the trade’s collapse, and then desperately took
to "the Googler" in an attempt to track down answers as to how the "Internet
machine" foiled his trade plans.
Social
Media and NBC Attempt to Spoil the Olympics
With the
2012 Olympic Games being dubbed as ‘the first real-time Olympics,’ enthusiasts
have already encountered issues with NBC and social media that were not present
in 2008. It’s safe to say the world didn’t revolve around the online world four
years ago as it does now, and with the availability of split-second updates
comes a new challenge: preserving the outcome of events for those of us who are
unable to watch them live.
The much
anticipated Michael Phelps vs. Ryan Lochte 400-meter race was aired on a tape
delay, and NBC mistakenly broadcast the results on its Nightly News programming and social media outlets. #NBCSucks soon
began trending on Twitter, and joke-accounts began cropping up left and right
(most notably @NBCDelayed, which acquired over 1,300 followers that evening.)
NBC went
into damage control mode, with executive producer Jim Bell responding to users’
grievances over his own Twitter account. NBC has announced they will now be
more cognizant over differentiating between ‘live’ Olympic-happenings and
tape-delayed footage, also warning viewers of potential ‘spoiler alerts’ before
airing.
We've
got an exciting week ahead of us, and for those like me who revel spend
countless hours with our noses pressed in the sports section, it’s about as
good as it gets. We’ve also got a week of learning curves; where producers,
editors and baseball front-offices try their hands at adapting to a world where
they’re still unfamiliar: the world where social media is the go-to source for
round the clock coverage.
-Carter Breazeale
PR/PR Public Relations
