Mike Wise, a columnist at the Washington Post, said on his radio show on Tuesday that the paper has suspended him for a month over his Twitter stunt the day before.
On Monday, Wise tweeted that Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger would be suspended for five games by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell:
Roethlisberger will get five games, I'm told.
Roethlisberger was suspended for six games by league after being accused of sexually assaulting a Georgia college student in March, but Goodell is reportedly going to meet this week with the quarterback to decide if the suspension should be reduced. (Most expect it will be cut to four.)
After his tweet was quickly debunked, Wise told his radio listeners he was merely trying to prove that "anybody will print anything." (He proved the opposite.)
On Monday afternoon, the Post's sports editor fired off a memo to the staff reminding them of the paper’s social media guidelines:
From: Matt Vita
Sent: 08/30/2010 02:49 PM EDT
To: NEWS – Sports
Subject: Post Guidelines on Use of Twitter, Other Social Media
In case anyone was not aware of them, the Post has guidelines on use of social media by our journalists. They apply to everyone, including reporters, editors and columnists in the Sports department. When you use social media, remember that you are representing The Washington Post, even if you are using your own account. This is not to be treated lightly. The same standards that we apply to ourselves in the newspaper, on the website, on mobile or in any other media platform apply to the world of social media. Most fundamentally, we need to be accurate. We need to be transparent. And we need to be fair.
Here are the guidelines. Please call me if you have any questions.
Matt
Click here to read the Post’s guidelines.
According to ProFootballTalk, Wise read a statement at the beginning of his Tuesday show, saying he "made a horrendous mistake," and that it "cost me a chunk of [my] own credibility."
