From the Rose Law Group Growlery
By Phil Riske, managing editor
I intend to post this column on Facebook and Twitter despite the often unintended consequences of social media.
While social media have proven to provide valuable tracking of accurate news, it can result in baseless rumors or hurtful, even damaging, results.
Hurtful was the case at a baseball game Wednesday in New York.
News in spread via social media in the middle of the game between the New York Mets and San Diego Padres Mets shortstop Wilmer Flores had been traded to the Milwaukee Brewers.
The 23-year-old Venezuelan shortstop has been with the team since he was just 16. Fans in the stands shouted comment about his being traded, although he had not been told by anyone in the Mets organization, and he continued to take the field through the game.
A supposed his with Milwaukee did not go through, but thinking he’d be leaving his beloved New York and team, Flores teared up right on the field in a heartbreaking scene
After the game, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson blamed social media for “getting ahead of the facts” and then having an “adverse effect” on Flores.
I heard about a journalism professor who told his students that if their mothers told them some news, first check it out.
