JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

Personally, I don’t have anything to do with Twitter, but some people I know — some of them very smart — do.

I understand…You get to follow the people you trust and like, and many Twitter users are reliable and interesting and entertaining.

But, my God, for those who get their “news” from Twitter, it’s no wonder the country is in the shape it’s in. Let me give you a great example.

Last night, I read on ESPN’s website that a couple of teams, including the San Francisco Giants, were pursuing Yankees’ star Aaron Judge. I was mildly interested in that, and thought it was surprising that he might leave the Yankees, so I Googled Judge to see what I could find.

One of the first things I came across was some tweets by a self-described “MLB, NFL and NBA insider” named Ben Dover.

I saw that the tweet at the top of his feed was dated Nov. 12. It said, “The San Francisco giants are signing free agent Aaron Judge to a 9 year deal.”

Beneath that was another tweet from earlier yesterday that said, “Free agent OF Aaron Judge is signing with the San Francisco Giants pending physical.”

Well, blimey, I thought, this is quite a story! Judge is not only leaving the Yankees, he’s going across the country to play for a team in the National League, and this fellow Dover has scooped the world; he knew it a month ago!

…Well, imagine my surprise when I got up this morning and read, on plodding, old ESPN, that Judge had signed a $360 million deal to stay with the Yankees.

I contacted my friend Lonnie Shalton, a retired Polsinelli founding partner who writes a “Hot Stove” baseball newsletter to hundreds of followers and is also a Twitter follower. (He’s one of the “very smart” people I referred to up top.)

I asked him how to interpret that Nov. 12 tweet and why it was at the top of Dover’s feed. Lonnie said it was a “pinned tweet.”

And what, I replied to Lonnie, is a “pinned tweet”?

His answer: “A person will sometimes want to highlight an older tweet and keep it at the top of his feed — one they are proud of, or maybe in this case, to make fun of themselves for being so wrong. It is not intended nor understood to be a part of the chronological order.”

I don’t know whether Scoop Dover was making fun of himself or what. I’ll just let you judge for yourselves from his full description of himself (as full as you get on Twitter, apparently):

“Has been, currently is, and will continue to be the best. MLB, NFL, and NBA Insider, Husband, Father of 1. *legally obligated to remind you all this is a PARODY.”

Based solely on his Aaron Judge reporting, I think it’s fair to describe him differently: Pending a physical…he’s nothing but a puffed-up bullshit artist.

But Father-of-One Dover wasn’t alone on the Giants scoop.

Lonnie sent me a story about a New York Post columnist named Jon Heyman who “reported” on Twitter Tuesday afternoon that Judge was signing with the Giants. The story said Heyman later deleted his tweet and apologized for “jumping the gun.”

The story said Heyman, “who is known for baseball breaking news to his 807,000-plus followers on Twitter, tweeted ‘Arson Judge appears headed to Giants,’ at 2:20 p.m. Minutes later, the tweet was taken down.”

How about that? Somehow, Scoop Heyman fell face down in a deeper mud puddle than Scoop Dover because, in addition to getting the story wrong, he misspelled Judge’s first name!

This episode confirmed my steadfast belief that it pays to stick with mainstream news outlets (mine are basically The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Kansas City Star and KCUR) to get news you can trust.

If Dover and Heyman were legitimate news men, they would be bathed in ignominy. But it’s just Twitter. What the hell?

**

Note: As I reported last month — and as The Star announced today — Mike Fannin is out as the paper’s president and editor. This has been a long and painful saga, with Fannin apparently suffering from alcoholism. He picked up his third DUI this past summer, in Olathe, and after the arrest he went on a leave of absence. I understand that either the day he returned, or soon thereafter, he was discovered sleeping in his office, apparently under the influence. He was sent home and that was unofficially the end of his 14 years as the paper’s top editor. All that was lacking was the official announcement…The one surprise I got from The Star’s story was that Fannin pleaded guilty Oct. 7 “and was sentenced to two days in jail, 120 hours of house arrest and one year of probation.”