ESPN’s new social media strategy prohibits talent and reporters from breaking news on Twitter

Posted: November 2nd, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Main | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments »

ESPN Ultimate Remote Microsite
Innovation, ESPN style.

You can read the full report here, but there isn’t much to see beyond that whole part about pretending like social media isn’t the ultimate breaking news outlet:

Do not break news on Twitter. We want to serve fans in the social sphere,but the first priority is to ESPN news and information efforts. Public news (i.e. announced in news conferences) can be distributed with- out vetting. However, sourced or proprietary news must be vetted by the TV or Digital news desks. Once reported on an ESPN platform, that news can (and should) be distributed on Twitter and other social sites.

ESPN obviously wants news to break on ESPN or ESPN.com, which makes sense in the abstract. The problem is that neither a cable station nor a website can compete with social media when it comes to breaking news.

As I see it, this strategy will leave ESPN reporters and talent at a disadvantage against the competition. Now the competition’s tweets about breaking news will be what everyone is retweeting. Perhaps ESPN reporters and talent will respond by retweeting these tweets too. They want to be a part of the breaking news conversation too, and may not want to wait for the official ESPN breaking news message to come out.

There is nothing wrong with breaking a story on Twitter and then telling your followers that more will be coming shortly. In these follow-up tweets, it makes sense to link to Web and video content that helps tell the fuller story.

Twitter has become the go-to place for breaking news to me. It just organically happens. If ESPN doesn’t want to break news on Twitter, there are plenty of other outlets, especially new media ones, that will.

  • http://twitter.com/polarscribe Travis Mason-Bushman

    This helps to explain why a number of ESPN’s top college sportswriters (Graham Watson, Pat Forde, et al.) have moved to greener pastures.

    • http://twitter.com/pwthornton Patrick Thornton

      I think this may explain that. ESPN has always been restrictive with its reporters, and in this rapidly changing space, that’s not a good thing. If ESPN is really going to be this restrictive, it could hurt reporters’ careers.

      Imagine trying to explain to someone in five years why you as a journalist make so little use of social media. ESPN’s social media strategy is quite restrictive for journalists and not something that I think a lot will want to put up with.

      ESPN makes all of its money from its cable channels and is trying to protect them at the expense of its Web presence. I don’t think they have to make that trade off. Being really good on social media should only make people more likely to go to ESPN.com and to watch ESPN’s channels.

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