how to spot a fake twitter baby

Posted on | August 7, 2009 | Comments

Journalism 101
* So, let me get this straight…

First, “Big Baby” posts on Twitter about being impatient waiting for his big fat contract to come through.
Then, the Boston Herald’s Mark Murphy writes a column reporting that Glen Davis is upset with the Celtics based on said Twitter account, without verifying with anyone that it is actually Glen Davis’ real Twitter account.
Then, Glen Davis informs Danny Ainge that the Twitter account isn’t his and whoever has been tweeting is in fact, an imposter.
Then, the Boston Herald’s Mark Murphy writes a column claiming that Glen Davis is claiming that the account on Twitter is actually run by an imposter (insinuating that maybe Davis is just saying that it’s not his.)

You know, as opposed to admitting that he wrote a column without basic fact checking to verify that the Twitter account was in fact belonging to Glen Davis. A quick call to the Celtics organization. An email to Glen’s agent. Something? Anything? No, apparently it was enough to just go to a Twitter profile where the name was filled in as “Glen Davis”.

Personally, I wasn’t following this imposter because I was suspicious from the get-go (as I am with most NBA player Twitter accounts until they’re verified.) The biggest reason I suspected it was a fake? This background image:

eee8-7-2009-4-18-31-pm

Even though we all think of Glen as this big doofus who would post a picture like that to his Twitter, I don’t think he thinks of himself that way. Even if I did believe it was him though, it’s one thing for fans to fall for fake Twitter profiles and quite another for journalists to fall for them and write columns based on their contents. Worse yet though, is for a journalist to fall for a fake profile, write a column based on it and then not admit to his mistake.

Shame on you, Mark Murphy.

ps. It’s amazing to me that an imposter could cause or potentially cause real damage to a person’s career and not get his profile suspended (as of 8:30pm EST 8/7). But, poor Hugging Harold Reynolds (the blog, not the human being) got suspended for 2 days for doing nothing wrong. You’re right on the ball, Twitter!

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