When Source Becomes Distribution Network

An interesting collision this weekend put me to thinking about the new role of people and organizations that once served the media ecosystem as sources, and what happens when those sources now have the means to distribute their own information.

Back in the day -- gosh, five years ago -- colleges and universities received notice of a game being on television, and would dutifully give that to the collective media to spread among the fan base.

Today, the moment we receive that information we share it to the media, but also directly to interested parties that follow our websites, real-time distribution networks and social media.

In the past few weeks, the contest to "be first" has led to some interesting events. A mistake by a website caused one of our local media to jump out with the news that an upcoming game would be on a certain network. It wasn't true. And in fact, there was no way it could be due to the league's TV windows and the preset game time.

We knew this, shared it with the media person. OK, retweet. Today, the news finally comes of what the network is -- so in the process of our sending out the info I'm concerned, is this going to look like I'm trying to call this media person out?

The networks and times come out at approximately the same time every week during football season for SEC teams. We have no particular interest in holding that back, or favoring one outlet over another. It's not going to be decided until the SEC says so. The league serves as source to us, and the same thing is going to happen -- as soon as they know, they will tell us and everyone else at once.

So is being first that important anymore? And if the source is also distributing the answers, is guessing to be first before the source makes a decision worth the chance of being wrong?

This echos locally back to the Mike Wise business. Now he claims that he was just making his "fake" tweet as a media gag on his radio show, and got caught by the Twitter Fail Whale -- his near immediate "hey, this is a joke and let's see how many people bite" tweet that he was saying over his radio show did not go out for 40 minutes. (You can listen more about his explanation through On the Media -- worth the click over).

But let's just say that Wise said he was guessing. Or that he had a mystery source. Or read another media account. When the NFL finally puts out their decision -- as source -- they send it through their distribution networks that Big Ben is getting four games.

What if Wise said four? He looks clairvoyant. He'd have bet the future with pocket deuces and come up the big winner. Would anyone really have been challenging him?

In our case if being on X network at Y time was almost systematically impossible, who's to say the media who jumped the gun would be at risk, if the risk proved correct.

Sometimes we get the sense that increasingly competitive media to be first are badgering for an insider edge, but get upset when we say no. The decision will be out when we've got it ready. Instead of respecting that as was the case in the past, the counter is "you're just holding it back so you can be first." No, we're holding it back until we know we're right.

I could have reasonably guessed that next week's football game with Alabama would be on CBS based upon several factors. But until the SEC tells us via email memo that it indeed is a done deal, it's just our opinion. And if we had put that out to fans that we're "pretty sure," we'd be barbecued by the same folks that upset that we're holding back from them.

I know it's a damned if you do/don't dilemma.