August 11th, 2009 
Journo Our friend John Daly over at The Daly Planet covered this topic the other day and he got a big response. TC and I spoke about the matter and since my opinion is differing from his and many of those who responded to Daly, I thought I would take an opportunity to write about it here.
If you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about, ESPN issued a directive “to all ESPN Talent, anchors, play by play, hosts, analysts, commentators, reporters and writers”that essentially forbid them from taking part in any social media that is related to sports. Ultimately they warn all employees who take part to end use of work related, but not network controlled, overseen, or approved, blogs, twitter, Facebook accounts etc. or face disciplinary action from the network.
Now it’s clear the memo is meant to protect the network and the network’s properties, not squelch the free speech of their journalists, though given the response of many on ProFootballTalk, The Daly Planet and elsewhere, many see ESPN as the Gestapo. I can’t say I necessarily agree.
Hear me out. I understand the argument for free speech, but from the stand point of ESPN, they take some liability having their personalities freely engaging readers. I can’t say I necessarily think forcing them to abandon their Twitter accounts was the best way to go about it, but I do think the guidelines laid out should have been laid out a long time ago.
In this new world order I personally have a hard time reconciling covering news and being an unbiased source of information, and giving your opinion on every sports star and story. At some point journalists run the risk of damaging their credibility. Can reporter X go on a tirade against a sanctioning body and then credibly and independently report on said body? In my opinion no.
With Twitter and other social media sites, reporters could and likely have given out too much information about the reporting of a story, negatively engaged readers, attacked other journalists, or just generally damaged their credibility. 140 characters is a lot of space to get yourself in trouble.
And if your an ESPN reporter shouldn’t the network be allowed to have some control of what you do when your working in a professional capacity? Probably.
All the above being said I think ESPN has made a big mistake not using social media for their benefit. From NASCAR to baseball their reporters have valuable things to contribute to the community, not only for their expert information, but for direct access to ESPN properties (something I know many were already doing). Isn’t driving traffic and expanding readership and viewership the main goal of any media outlet? Apparently they figured it was best to cut it off completely than to figure out how to properly and professionally utilize it.
So what do you think? Did ESPN go too far? Are you going to miss your favorite ESPN personality’s Tweets? Do you feel completely unaffected by this? Let us know!
UPDATE: I got an email from Andy Hall, media relations manager at ESPN looking to clarify the policy a little bit. I thought I would share what he wrote:
Thanks for your column today about ESPN and Twitter – and thank you for generally supporting with what we did. There’s still an assumption out there (perpetuated by some bloggers and others) that we have BANNED our announcers and reporters from using Twitter, Facebook, etc., but that is totally false. If you’ll check, you’ll see that Shannon Spake, Mike Massaro, Marty Smith (from our NASCAR coverage team) and other ESPN people are still Tweeting.
This column by Michael Hiestand in USA Today pretty much sums it up:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2009-08-05-espn-twitter_N.htm
Thanks for your column today about ESPN and Twitter – and thank you for generally supporting with what we did. There’s still an assumption out there (perpetuated by some bloggers and others) that we have BANNED our announcers and reporters from using Twitter, Facebook, etc., but that is totally false. If you’ll check, you’ll see that Shannon Spake, Mike Massaro, Marty Smith (from our NASCAR coverage team) and other ESPN people are still Tweeting.
This column by Michael Hiestand in USA Today pretty much sums it up:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2009-08-05-espn-twitter_N.htm
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The ESPN reporters haven’t been cut off, just told that there was a line that they have to be careful not to cross. Ryan McGee, Marty Smith and Allen Bestwick were still using their accounts this weekend, although the volume has definitely scaled back.
It isn’t primarily a legal or credibility of the reporter issue, it is a business (i.e., revenue) issue. ESPN makes money not by covering sports for its viewers rather by delivering viewers to advertisers; sports coverage is more a means than an end in of itself. Put another way, millions of Twitter followers are useless… unless they can be monetized. ESPN wants to increase contact with its viewers and readers… but only if it increases advertising revenue and, most importantly, doesn’t diminish the advertising revenue it receives from its TV stations, magazine and web sites.
Social media like Twitter and Facebook fail both tests. ESPN not only doesn’t get any money from having its reporters Twitter; in fact, there is a good chance that their doing so is detrimental to advertising revenue as readers getting Twitter feeds may not visit the advertising supported website as much as they otherwise would.
steve – exactly….follow the money! But I do agree with Journo, ESPN needs to figure out how they can have their folks use “new media” to drive the viewers/readers to the revenue generating sites.
How can you say that Twitter and Facebook do not help ESPN make money?
I follow many ESPN personalities on Twitter. My favorites are Marty Smith and the PTI guys. Nine out of 10 times they post something it causes me to either go to ESPN.com or watch ESPN on television.
That is especially true with the PTI guys. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read one of their “tweets” then watched the show later that day to hear more on the subject. And I’m sure I’m not the only person that does this.
Please don’t use Daly Planet to gauge most NASCAR fans. They “get off” bashing almost anything and ESPN and their announcers are at the top of the list. I have never read such a negative blog with just plain sad and nasty people. They really need to get out and enjoy life.
I agree with Josh. Used correctly, Twitter and FB can definitely drive traffic to your site or show. In fact, I just read an article that included a comment from an Entertainment Tonight exec who discussed Paula Abdul tweeting her departure from AI before making a press statement. They did well that night because viewers went to Entertainment Tonight to find out more, see interviews, etc.
I work in local news and our anchors and reporters all have Twitter accounts with rules of expected behavior. The impact can be great if, say, our sports anchor gets a scoop and tweets to “watch at 11.”
shload: We weren’t making a generalization about all NASCAR fans based off what we saw on The Daly Planet. But Journo was responding to some comments he saw there, as well as a few other places.
John Daly does a good job with his site, but sometimes the things he writes aren’t going to be pretty. If he thinks something is wrong or didn’t go well, he isn’t going to sugar coat it. And personally, I’d rather have him tell it like it is.
In regards to the people who comment on his site, often times the ones who are negative or angry are the most vocal. We’ve certainly learned that about people on our site. But even so, there is a ton of negativity around our sport right now, and many in the media are just adding fuel to the fire.
The ESPN memo covers all sports and applies to all employees, fulltime or just under contract. There are two issues that have come to the front of this discussion.
One, isn’t Twitter driving NASCAR fans to go to ESPN.com and check out the stories filed by the ESPN reporters? Often, the NASCAR Now TV show is “teased” through information posted on Twitter. This is gone with the new ESPN directive.
Secondly, ESPN has no technology to replace Twitter. Perhaps in several months they may have software that makes it easy for their reporters and personalities, but right now there is just silence where sports reporting content is concerned.
If ESPN has allowed the NASCAR personalities to use Twitter through the end of the season, fans would have a much better opportunity to develop the kind of personal relationships that have come to define social media.
Currently, TDP has over 100 comments from NASCAR fans nationwide about the ESPN coverage from Watkins Glen. My comments are not among them, just ones from the fans. I would invite my friend above to stop by anytime.
Thanks guys!
JD
I’m going to have to side with John Daly on this one. I write a blog, just like John does, except people read his. Most people don’t read mine. I more or less echoed John’s feelings on the ESPN memo, and I was contacted by a guy at ESPN who sent me a USA Today article about how the ESPN guys could still tweet. I even wrote an “I’m sorry” piece about it, but now I sort of wish I hadn’t. I notice on my stat site that ESPN has been checking in every day, for who knows what reason. If they want me to delete my original piece on the memo and resulting fiasco, I don’t do that. ESPN needs to understand that I never delete anything, whether or not I’m wrong or right.
I’ve noticed that most of the ESPN people are still tweeting, but mostly about their families. That’s nice, but it’s still sad that some great voices have apparently been silenced via e-mail. Most of the time, the tweets I received from the ESPN guys led me to ESPN.com to read the full story. I guess I won’t do that any more.
Credibility at ESPN, in my view, is the exception now rather than the rule, so I have a hard time seeing how ESPN’s could be harmed by twittering, but then I’ve only been watching ESPN since the days it carried Australian rules football.
ESPN has, or at least should have, a responsibility to its users, especially since one of its 2 biggest sources of revenue is the amount each cable subscriber pays for the privilege of having ESPN available – which I believe averages a little over $2 per month for every cable subscriber who has access to ESPN. Used properly twittering should be able to both inform ESPN users and drive traffic back to the main platforms.
Journo, You got basically the same e-mail I got from Andy Hall. I guess we will see what we will see.
Thanks for your column.
Jim
Looks right now like the only crackdown that has happened involves the reporting of sports information and news that has real value to the ESPN.com site.
Nothing has been enforced as far as Marty Smith telling us his thoughts on VaTech or Ryan McGee about his vacation.
What has totally stopped across the board is breaking news and information that has a bigger value to ESPN as proprietary content.
If that is what they really wanted to stop, it might be a lot less painful for many of us than what was stated in the original memo.
Thanks guys!
JD