Be Careful What You Tweet

By Courtney Carey

Ryan Babel, like many of us, is an avid user of the social media site, Twitter. Yahoo! Sports reported yesterday that Babel, midfielder for Liverpool’s soccer team, was charged with improper conduct by the Football Association for the content of one of his tweets.

During the match between Liverpool and Manchester United in the third-round of the FA Cup, referee Howard Webb made a questionable call in favor of Manchester. In response to the referee’s call, Babel tweeted a doctored photo of Webb wearing a Manchester United shirt with a caption reading, “And they call him one of the best referees? That’s a joke.” While Babel stated that the tweet was “an emotional reaction after losing an important game,” the Football Association did not find the tweet humorous and charged him with improper conduct.

Babel’s experience not only demonstrates that you should always be aware of what you say on a public platform such as Twitter, but that social media sites are now considered a source of serious and legitimate statements. While the use of Twitter can still be fun and light-hearted, it is important to always think about the impact that your statements may have.

Courtney Carey is Manager of Social Media at Maroon PR. Contact her at Courtney@MaroonPR.com

Times of London Creating a Model that needs to be Followed

By John Maroon

A few weeks back one of Britain’s most popular and successful newspapers, The Times, began charging its readers for online content. Yahoo.com reported the story on July 2.

The paper, as well as its sister publication, The Sunday Times, is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s New Corporation. The Wall Street Journal (also owned by Murdoch) and The Financial Times also charge for online content.

I believe this is a necessary and positive step by The Times. The old adage is “you get what you pay for.” It is the truth. Not long ago, and to a lesser extent today, we rely on the news media to be creditable, accurate and serve as a watchdog over our nation. The media is also known as The Fourth Estate for that reason.

As consumers we never expected newspapers to be free when they were still a popular means, so why do we expect information on the internet to be free? It’s simply because we have been conditioned to believe that.

The end result is that our best and brightest are no longer choosing journalism as an occupation. The news gathering agencies cannot pay as well and the quality of coverage continues to slip.

Will this be a challenge and interesting to watch? Absolutely! Is there an option…no. For any business to survive it needs to generate revenue and in order for them to grow they need to hire and retain talent.

For the greater good of our society I hope that all of the major papers in the United States follow the lead of The Times and that we, as a country, understand that there is a price for quality and paying for news means better, more accurate media with higher integrity… which will be great for all of us.

John Maroon is the President of Maroon PR. Contact him at john@maroonpr.com.