No Tweeting during practice: Redskins

Since training camp moved away from my environs, it was so nice not to have to deal with that paranoic bullshit this August.

"Hey, you MUST stand in that end zone to watch practice! And TV stations ... no filming! And you can only watch the first team On the 8s! Otherwise, you must turn your dirty media face around, look towards Indianapolis and genuflect reverently in honor of the grand and glorious Bill Polian!"

I made some of that shit up, but a fuck off applies just the same.

I have a ton of respect for NFL writers. The day-to-day garbage they have to deal with alone is worth the respect.

 

I think it was the Colts a few years back who wouldn't let reporters bring pens or notebooks to an open practice. I'm not sure if that was the regular policy or a one-time thing.

 

The frustrating thing isn't that newspapers whiffed on the Internet. A lot of industries whiffed on the Internet. The problem is, we continue to whiff, making putrid decision after putrid decision with little acknowledgment of how important these decisions are, even though we should know full well how important they are because of how badly our putrid decisions 15-20 years ago have hurt us.

I mean, we're talking Business 101 here. I can't tell you how many people have told me that they pretty much rely on Twitter for all of their news. On my beat, we have three traveling writers, and as soon as a piece of news happens all three of us are scrambling to post it as fast as we can via Twitter. People log onto our site and it's not there. But it's on Twitter. Say what you will about ESPN, but they make sound business decisions. And ESPN has a well thought out, unequivocal Twitter policy.

Most papers still treat the Internet like some neat-o, keen fad that is cool to experiment with. Start Twittering! Blog! Live blog this game! Set up a Facebook page! Yet there is no top-down, big-picture strategy that spells out why we are doing all of this, and how we can best use these tools together to make the company money.

 

Yeah. I'll call the fault on myself. No idea on why I mentioned that.

 

Actually, I like that the Redskins are doing this, mainly because I want to see the death of Twitter. It's not required at my paper, and I hope the fad is gone by the time I'm ready to move up.

 

It turned out to be a one-time thing, but they wanted it to be policy.

 

O noez.

RedskinsWriter: Albert Haynesworth is still a fat load sitting on the bike.

RedskinsWriter: Donovan McNabb just took 10 5-step drops.

RedskinsWriter: Clinton Portis showed up looking like a jackass.

There is nothing in major sports less important and more boring than an NFL practice. If I were a Redskins beat guy (pause for laughter to subside) I'd be thrilled with this edict.

 

Boring? Absolutely. But the fans and readers freak out over shit like which players missed practice and shit like that.

 

Agreed, but the no Twitter edict isn't keeping that information from getting out there. Don't the teams have to report on Thurs and Fri who missed practice?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the actual information revealed during the amount of time that most teams allow reporters to view "practice" is incredibly small. Isn't it usually just stretching and light exercises? Been a while since I've been to a camp but that's what I recall.

 

I was at a bar with some friends a few weeks back, and there was a college football practice on one of the WWLs. I said, "I would rather gouge my eyes out with these forks than voluntarily watch a college football practice if I wasn't getting paid for it." The guys I was with were clearly taken aback. I mean, they got it, because they know what I do for a living. But they still said in polite but no uncertain terms that they would love to be able to watch practice.

And Mizzou is right. Fans love to hear things like who missed, who was with the first and second teams, etc., etc.

Baseball fans love lineups.

Oh, and as far as I can remember, baseball clubhouses do not let you use your cell phone while in the clubhouse. Their clubhouse, their rules. I've never thought twice about it.

 

No, but it is attempting to prevent irresponsible information from getting out there. Which is sad, because we should be policing ourselves on stuff like that. 140 characters doesn't give you a hell of a lot of room for context. So when a beat writer sends out a Twitter message from the sideline that says, "Tom Brady just limped off the practice field. More as we get it...," he very likely will start an absolute shit storm, with every media outlet who isn't at practice bombarding the PR guy's cell phone looking for info on the Brady injury, even if Brady merely tweaked his ankle and hobbled to the training room to get some ice.

Twitter has also brought about the death of etiquette. I don't know how many times I've seen somebody pick up a cell phone and start Twittering DURING A FRICKIN INTERVIEW. Not a one-on-one interview. But even in a gang bang, can you at least wait for the guy to finish talking before you start giving away his quotes for free on somebody else's platform?

Look, a Twitter policy is probably typical PR overkill. Remember, most of these guys are looking to justify their existence through the path of least resistance. But you know what? Embrace it. Not only is somebody not asking you to muddle your thoughts with the informational equivalent of Chinese Water Torture, they are forbidding you from doing so. Here's a thought - tell your boss about the policy, leave your cell in the press room, and actually watch practice.

 

I don't know, Daemon. Isn't Tom Brady limping off the practice field (like Belichick would ever allow him to do that) as newsworthy as him limping off the field in a game? And even if it's just a tweak, it would probably end up in the injury report anyway.