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facebook - Should you 'friend' a person you cover?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by wisportswriter, Jun 15, 2009.

  1. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    Facebook is a public forum, and it is fair game.

    If it kills your relationship with the player, well that's another matter.
     
  2. Cosmo

    Cosmo Well-Known Member

    Yep. A football player on my beat announced he had gotten a sixth year of eligibility, and one of his friends posted the status update on a fan message board. Makes me think, yes, I should friend folks after I interview them...
     
  3. Diabeetus

    Diabeetus Active Member

    I think the term friend is the issue. It'd be much more accurate if it were called contacts or acquaintances. As it is, I think very few people would say all of their Facebook friends are actually friends.
     
  4. First off, I've got to say this one of the more interesting subjects I've seen here in quite some time. A lot of real interesting points to be made both pro and con. Kudos to all for your insight.

    Now, as to THIS point...
    Care to elaborate on this? Not being snarky. I'm relatively new to Facebook and know next to nothing about MySpace. So, I'm really interested to hear your thoughts and insights. What's the difference here?
     
  5. Cosmo

    Cosmo Well-Known Member

    Myspace always felt like it was for a younger generation and was much more outwardly social. Facebook, for a better word, is a more professional site, I guess. Not A professional site, but it just feels like it's more about networking on facebook and less about acting like a 16-year-old.
     
  6. mediaguy

    mediaguy Well-Known Member

    I've used Facebook and Myspace to reach recruits in particular -- great way to get in touch if you don't have a home or cell number and can't get one through a high school coach.
     
  7. StaggerLee

    StaggerLee Well-Known Member

    I think that was the intention, to make Facebook the MySpace for college students and professionals. But Facebook is quickly becoming just like MySpace.
     
  8. apeman33

    apeman33 Well-Known Member

    I've had a few high school athletes try to "friend" me. So before I accept, I send them a message laying down ground rules.

    1) Just because you want to add me does not mean I will accept.
    2) I won't accept if you're not a senior.
    3) If you put stuff on your Facebook you wouldn't want your parents to know about, don't add me.
    4) If you put stuff on your Facebook you wouldn't want strangers to know about, a) Don't add me and b) Why are you on Facebook?

    I think about 10 or 12 high school athletes have tried to add me. After I sent that out, only two of them mailed back and said "That's OK." One of them wanted to add me so he could tell me when he decided to sign with a college. After I explained to him that since my profile is public, he doesn't even have to add me to do that, he decided that he didn't need to add me after all.
     
  9. Diabeetus

    Diabeetus Active Member

    Facebook has many more users and is continuing to grow, while MySpace (which used to have more) has been steadily declining in number of users.
     
  10. apeman33

    apeman33 Well-Known Member

    When I first joined MySpace, I could do a search for other people from Podunkville and come up with 40 people total. Now, if I do a search just for women with pics within 10 miles (which I just did just to see what came up), I get about 600 people.

    MySpace jumped the shark when Fox bought it and it became a spam-o-rama. I don't think I've done a thing with mine in over six months.

    Facebook doesn't have as much of an issue with spam and I've also been able to get in touch with way more high school and college classmates and past professional contacts than I had total number of contacts on MySpace. I don't think I've ever had more than 30 contacts on MySpace but I have about 110 on MySpace and I interact with a greater percentage of them than MySpace.

    I actually think part of the ease of using Facebook (at least to me) is that everyone's Facebook profile is laid out the same way, so you know what to expect. MySpace pages are "blinged" so much that there are pages where you can't read status updates or find the e-mail link and that makes MySpace harder to use.
     
  11. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    How 'bout LinkedIn, since someone mentioned professional? Can you add them on Linkedin?
     
  12. Diabeetus

    Diabeetus Active Member

    I think LinkedIn would be ideal, but the problem is that most of the people on it have already graduated.
     
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