We all know the Constitution of our country gives us the right to a freedom of speech, however I think it's fair to say a whole new list of amendments needs to be written up for our beloved sports world.
Athletes and TV personalities don't exactly get the whole "freedom of speech" right, specifically on social networks.
I write this as I listen to the His and Hers podcast from this past Monday and both Michael Smith and Jemele Hill have made statements, whether in a column or on twitter that could have been career threatening if not handled with the proper PR actions. Personally, I don't believe either action was extremely offensive, at the same time, the hardest thing to remember as a journalist is that if its offensive to one person, it's offensive.
When the Trayvon Martin verdict came down earlier this summer, many athletes and other celebrities took to twitter to express the opinion on the situation. While it seems as if the opinions of many actors, actresses, and others in that field, went unaddressed, almost every athlete who tweeted after the verdict became a topic of discussion in the following 24-48 hours.
I've always thought twitter was a platform that athletes could use to connect to the public and their fans, so when they express an opinion on an issue that is far beyond sports, why are they attacked?
I completely understand the whole concept of being a role model and watching what you say in the public eye.
In fact, even in my position, being weeks away from 21, still a college student, and keeping up with this blog that I hope blows up one day, I have told myself of numerous occasions that its time for me to stop cursing on my social networking sites. I'm nowhere near where I want to be in this field but I do understand that if someone were to look at my tweets from the past 24 hours alone, I'd probably lose endless opportunities. I have thought about opening a whole new account as my "professional" twitter to promote, but I think that'd be a cop out personally. I simply need to discipline myself and censor myself because when I finally do make it, I've seen to many careers in my field ended by clicking send one too many times.
I totally digressed from the route I wanted to take in this post, but I hope the point I was trying to make got across.
I started this post of with bringing up freedom of speech. While not getting too political, I think it's fair to say athletes and alot of many others in the journalism world don't get to fully live out that freedom, especially in the public eye.
