"Dance, clown, dance" ... or, stick to sports

In some markets, not only should sports writers refrain from commenting on non-sports topics on official Twitter accounts, they also should not comment on opposing teams/players/coaches/fanbases.

That can get nasty real quick, especially among SEC/ACC fan bases.

That said, I've had many times more conversations with reporters telling them to tweet sports news more quickly or more often (or -- dammit! -- stop linking to other people's stories when we have or are working on our own) than telling people to stop ccommenting on politics or religion or whatever.

Most of the time writers cross the line is in reacting to people giving them shit.

 

I stay away from it on social media. I always tell people, if you believe voter turnout roughly, then 50 percent of your audience is apathetic and doesn't care. If the other half is roughly split 50/50 left and right, then you're probably alienating 75% of your audience when you go there. It's not worth it.

If you want to do it though.......don't make comparisons. Definitely don't make comparisons to WWII or 9/11. It doesn't end well.

 

This. Oh this.

 

Personally, I think it's just dumb to tweet about anything other than what you're covering. Doesn't matter if it's on your own time or not. You still represent your employer when you're in the media. Absolutely stupid to start throwing your politics around like you're above everyone. That's not asking, that's begging for something fucked up to happen.

To make the comparisons he did was idiotic. He got what he deserved. So, to answer your question, hell no they shouldn't and if they do they better have a wonderful spouse that gets paid in buckets.

 

You do, which means the only thing that matters is your employer's standards. Some employers won't care if you call someone a "pussy" in the heat of political arguments (bless you Clay Travis). Some will.

 

It's very easy to get a personal Twitter account for all of the political stuff.

As a side note - 99% of people are not funny on twitter. Think they are. They're not.

 

This. +1

 

99% of people who post tweets are not funny, too. Think they are. They're not.

 

I can't imagine a scenario in which I'd ever share a political viewpoint on Twitter or Facebook.

 

There's no such thing as a purely personal social media account. If one's real name is associated with it, then it's easy enough to trace to the byline. I'm not sure how that applies to the few remaining desk folks.

I said upthread, Bart Hubbuch's Twitter account was verified so it had to be either linked to his work e-mail or he provided proof of his "impact in his field."

 

Hey, I'm a 1 percenter!

 

If you tweet something like that, especially at a paper that is owned by Murdoch, you are basically challenging them to fire you.