NBA Insider Competition on Twitter
The role that Twitter played in creating competition among two NBA insiders on Trade Deadline day.
In this day in age of digital media and content creation, anybody with a camera and a Twitter account can, to a certain extent, be a journalist.
If you are in the right place at the right time, why not document what you are seeing to the rest of the world on social platforms? But the main drawback, especially when it involves social media, is the threat of fake accounts and less than reliable sources breaking news.
As with any other topic, people need to know who to trust and who not to trust. At the same time, even trustworthy sources are not always reliable and for NBA fans, the Trade Deadline demands instant and credible information.
Journalism is all about competition and in the world of sports, this competitive spirit is heightened on Trade Deadline day. So if you are a basketball fan, this might just affirm your belief that Adrian Wojnarowski is the most reliable NBA insider.
If you are not a basketball fan, you are probably wondering ‘why should I care about this curation?’ Well, the underlying principles of timeliness, accuracy and access apply to any topic in the news you are interested in and could help you better understand what sources to trust.
Wojnarowski of ESPN and Shams Charania are both great reporters, but Wojnarowski simply is better.
On virtually all the major trades, Charania was either beat by Wojnarowski or did not have sources to report the deal.
Isaiah Thomas from Cleveland to Los Angeles: Wojnarowski beat Charania by a minute — which in journalism matters more than most realize.
Emmanuel Mudiay from the Denver Nuggets to the New York Knicks: Wojnarowski beat Charania by five minutes.
Wojnarowski also broke the news that Dwayne Wade was traded back to the Miami Heat from the Cleveland Cavaliers, and Charania never had information about it.
These are just a few examples, but it definitely hurts a journalists credibility when you are constantly beat. It is also important to curate this information because if Wojnarowski and Charania tweet different information about the same topic, the public now should know who to trust.
An GIF app even created one for this topic and it is pretty hilarious.
To be fair, Wojnarowski has been reporting on the NBA longer than Charania. Charania was brought along by Wojnarowski when both worked for Yahoo.
But most NBA fans would agree that nobody is better at dropping “bombs” than Wojnarowski, and he can thank Twitter and other social media platforms for allowing him to do what he does at a faster pace.
For fairness purposes, Charania did beat his counterpart several times last offseason, as this parody video from ET TV explains:
But more often than not, Wojnarowski is the one that beats Charania to a big story. Maybe Charania will beat his rival more often in the years to come, but for now, Wojnarowski is the king of breaking NBA news. Hopefully, this curation helped you understand the importance of competition, accuracy and timeliness in journalism, even if you are not an NBA fan.
If you want to know more about Wojnarowski’s career as an NBA insider, Katie Nolan did a great interview with him:
RELATED LINKS:
Wojnarowski explained his decision to join ESPN to the New York Daily News
An interesting back story on Charania’s rise from college senior to NBA insider
