Another example of the dangers of Twitter

Joe --

That's exactly it. Karaoke.

 

Tony LaRussa's lawyers get paid by the hour when the lawsuit is going forward, not so much when it isn't.

 

I laugh that anybody thinks LaRussa is going to be able to prove his reputation was damaged and was under emotional distress because of an obvious parody on Twitter.

Of course there's crap on Twitter, but if you refuse to see the good in it, too, you're being a bit pigheaded.

 

Agreed in the sense that, as media, we can use Twitter to help get our message out -- tweets with links to drive traffic to our sites and promote our product, whether it's in print or on the web.

But using Twitter as a newsgathering source has all sorts of potential pitfalls, as the fake Chad and fake Tony illustrate quite nicely.

Same goes for Facebook and other new communications outlets. You'd better be damned sure the person tweeting is really the person you think it is.

 

That's journalism 101 stuff, too. I hate when people don't follow the basics just because they are trying to prove how hip to the times they are. You don't use quotes from press releases, because the odds that the person actually said it are pretty slim, so why Twitter?

 

It's like everything else, you can quote someone's as posting on their Twitter account once you've verified it's their account.

"Hey Tony, is that you posting on SexyLaRussa69?"

"Why yes, that's me."

Bingo.

 

Beetus, I'm not denying that the modus operandi itself when used properly is beneficial, like beat writers and news outlets sending out "Tweets" alerting their followers to a breaking news item that is about to go up on their site.

But someone sending out a "Tweet" posing as Tony LaRussa saying he's glad they took two out of three from the Cubs and got out of Chicago without a DUI is certainly damaging to his reputation and probably caused emotional distress being as, like I said before, the Twitter page was not called "Fake Tony LaRussa."

You can't describe it as an obvious parody if at least one person signed up as a follower thinking that this was the real Tony LaRussa's page. Some of the athletes who are Twittering for real like T.O. and Shaq carry themselves differently on their Twitter page than they do in front of the media for whatever reason, thus you see them "Tweet" things that to a reasonable person might sound like a parody of themselves because even they still don't realize the impact.

Sorry for the long rant but your short-sighted comment claiming that those of us who remain skeptical of Twitter are "pigheaded" prompted my response.

 

Sorry...I guess I wasn't completely clear.

I have no problem with skepticism of Twitter, and I think skepticism of any technology or service is a healthy thing. What I meant by the pigheaded comment was that the people who write off an entire technology because of certain flaws within it are pigheaded. Yeah, there are downsides of Twitter, but there are also big upsides, too. Can't find the link right offhand, but according to recent analytics, nearly 10 percent of Twitter users go to online newspaper sites vs. 3.something percent of all online users. Sites like Twitter can really drive traffic online, but some people would rather completely ignore it than use its strengths.

As for LaRussa, I guess they settled

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/baseball/mlb/06/05/larussa.twitter.lawsuit.ap/index.html

 

I'm almost positive that's not the legal standard here.

The reason lawyers insisted on putting "Fake" in front of the name's in that radio show is that it's their job to make sure there's absolutely no chance that their employers' are sued and waste money defending a lawsuit, even if they will almost certainly win it.

 

Like La Russa can be embarrassed any more than he embarrassed himself with his drinking-and-driving shenanigans.

 

Ah, the Charles Barkley defamation of character argument. Well played.

 

Twitter now to verify accounts:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/feeds/?p=1257