For tweet's sake: Of Robinson Cano, suspensions and shaky sourcing

He protected it after the incident. In the hours after anyone could view it.

 

It's always kind of enjoyable, in my opinion, to see a news investigative person who almost certainly looks down their nose at sports journalists (or at the very least feels privately superior to us) try to pull off a sports story and fall on their face.

 

Your rule generally holds true, but there are exceptions: I'm pretty sure this place had news of Raffy Palmeiro's test before it hit the media, way back when.

 

Hope it's fiction, but have any of these ever been wrong in the end?

 

This guy falls on his face a lot.
Sports or not.

 

I agree completely. If I was his boss, I'd fire his ass unless he showed me proof and I could confirm it. This isn't a trade or a benching or an "Oops, we got bad info. Sorry." kind of thing.

Unfortunately, this mentality will continue to escalate with the continued push to "digital first" and social media. A mindset already exists of "Just post it and we'll fix it as we go along" - I heard that 4-5 years ago in our newsroom. It isn't just troubling; it's completely against the grain of the standards and professionalism of journalism and reporting.

If you're writing a 49-inch Sunday takeout, a 15-inch gamer, a 140-character tweet or one of multiple online posts, GET IT RIGHT and don't fuck around with "It's just a tweet, we can get a do-over."

 

That mindset pre-dates the internet. I knew TV guys 20+ years ago who operated under a "run it, worry about it later" mindset.