Where is the Line?

Deadspin gives us an interesting note today from the sports journalism world. A Tampa Bay beat reporter tweeted some potential news on a player that turned out to be rumor. In the meantime, of course, the Tampa Bay world was all atwitter (sorry, bad pun) over the prospect.

The writer, Rick Stroud, has since said well, you know, it's not real until I put it on TampaBay.com. Thanks for clearing that up.

Good to know media members are equally confused about what is news, or a public statement. I'm sure Lane Kiffin and Tennessee would like to have that defense available from the unfortunate Twitter incident over a commitment. If Stroud's logic follows, Kiffin's personal assistant gets a mulligan since that wasn't a "real" website; just Twitter.

Please, everyone -- the public square has expanded to all forms of communication. If you post it in public, guess what, it's a public statement that you may be asked to stand behind. I'm not going to bogart all of Deadspin's take -- which is spot on -- but you cannot have it both ways. It is either news, or made up buzz.