UW Imposes 20-Tweet Limit On Live Events 196
theodp writes "GeekWire's Taylor Soper reports that the University of Washington has capped live sports coverage at 20 Tweets per basketball game (45 for football) and threatens to revoke the credentials of journalists who dare exceed the Twitter limits. Tacoma News Tribune reporter Todd Dybas was reportedly 'reprimanded' after drawing the ire of the UW Athletic Dept. for apparently Tweeting too much during UW's 85-63 Sunday win over Loyola."
Re:and....? (Score:5, Interesting)
“I think just generally speaking is what we’re trying to do is steer people toward partnerships we have with radio, television and our own web presence,” Moore said. “We don’t want people taken way from that experience.”
that it's supposedly an university.. sounds to me like it's a pro sports team first and everything else second.
So how is tweeting about semi-pro sports ... (Score:2, Interesting)
So how is tweeting about semi-pro sports ... news for nerds?
(Yes, I am aware that this is a university game, but any game where the sponsors control the media exposure in order to profit is at least semi-pro in nature to me, since being "Pro" is all about whether you get income from it)
News sources should simply skip a few games (Score:5, Interesting)
if ALL of the news sources would simply skip a couple of games, then the sports director would quickly change their mind.
Re:Fair enough I suppose (Score:5, Interesting)
I just adore the way that the school's PR weasel manages to word it as though those cruel journalists are tearing innocent readers 'away from that experience', rather than admit the obvious "apparently following the game on twitter is more engaging than watching or listening to it, at least as broadcast by our paying partners"...
Re:Fair enough I suppose (Score:1, Interesting)
Can you imagine a newspaper reporter NOT beeing given a target word-count for his articles?
Unlike space on a webpage, space in a newspaper is limited. If the editor reserves a certain amount of space for event x, the reporter is sent there with the task to write a 100 (1000, 5000...) words article about that event. No more, no less. (give or take a few additional words for lower average word lengths)
Re:Fair enough I suppose (Score:4, Interesting)
UW's failure to grasp the realities of the modern world doesn't make a bit of difference.
Although they could revoke the "credentials" of a traditional-media reporter (ironically, the one group they do need to appease for the advertising revenue), how do they plan to stop a "random fan" from tweeting as much as he wants? 20 tweets? That doesn't even come out to one-per-scored-point in most sports. I've seen people send twice that (well, I've only "seen" them text, can't say for sure if they tweeted it) just in the top of the first inning!
Let UW have its little pissing contes - They'll lose, of course, but it might provide some entertainment to watch (cue them learning about the "Streisand" effect at their next game in 3... 2...1...).
Then sit in the crowd (Score:4, Interesting)