The most powerful sports entity in the country is enacting a far-reaching policy regarding social media.
As discussed by ESPN NBA reporter Ric Bucher via Twitter, ESPN sent out a memo on Tuesday with several guidelines for employee use of social media. According to Deadspin, “this memo has been in the works for a while, and ESPN wouldn’t enact such an over-arching policy based on one incident.” In other words, the Mark Schlereth/Chad Ochocinco Twitter confrontation did not result in the new guidelines.
Among the rules outlined in the memo: ESPN personalities are prohibited from having “[p]ersonal websites and blogs that contain sports content,” and are required to get permission from their supervisors before “engaging in any form of social networking dealing with sports.”
ESPN talent is also advised to “steer clear of … [defending their] work against those who challenge it,” to always assume that they are representing ESPN, and to avoid writing something on Twitter that they would not say in a column or on the air.
Notably, ESPN asks that employees “[a]void discussing internal policies or detailing how a story or feature was reported, written, edited or produced and discussing stories or features in progress, those that haven’t been posted or produced, interviews you’ve conducted, or any future coverage plans.” This comes just weeks after ESPN came under heavy scrutiny for its policy regarding athlete civil suits.
Bucher may have already violated that guideline by even discussing the memo in the first place — something he alluded to on Twitter. Deadspin notes that one “skittish ESPN Twitterer described it as ‘flagrantly testing’ the new policy.”
The ESPN social media guidelines apply to “anchors, play by play, hosts, analysts, commentators, reporters and writers who participate in any form of personal social networking that contain sports related content.” In a statement, ESPN said that it is merely “getting smarter” about social media “by providing guidelines to commentators and reporters.”
