Jason Whitlock and Shaun King got into an ugly Twitter War regarding King’s expose about allegations against Peyton Manning at Tennessee. Given where both men stand in sports media and culture, this was probably the most predictable development in the history of social media. What, you thought the controversy surrounding this Manning story was going to go away without any fireworks?
It started when Whitlock linked to a j.school column bashing King’s article about Manning amidst a bunch of other social commentary:
https://twitter.com/WhitlockJason/status/699999768106242048
King apparently got word of it and tore in to Whitlock, slamming him with a number of NSFW insults, calling out his employment at Fox, and referencing the disaster that was his tenure at The Undefeated. For his part, Whitlock called out King over questions over his true identity.
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/700001957197570048
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/700002381010989058
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/700003342047703040
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/700004673454022657
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/700006799156584448
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/700008289338318848
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/700010554711212032
https://twitter.com/WhitlockJason/status/700014989428391936
https://twitter.com/WhitlockJason/status/700015667181785088
And that’s when King kicked things up by several hundred thousand cringeworthy notches…
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/700016267214856192
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/700017907506552832
https://twitter.com/WhitlockJason/status/700018483170414592
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/700022733976006656
https://twitter.com/WhitlockJason/status/700023574480879616
We haven’t seen a Twitter War quite like this where the combatants took on two entirely different strategies. First, King stuck to throwing haymakers in the form of highly profane name-calling and character assassination. “Go work out” is definitely worth a point taken off the judges’ scorecards. If King wants to be taken seriously as a journalist in the sports media, NSFW rants like this aimed at critics are not going to help his cause.
In the other corner, Whitlock stuck to…. repeatedly pumping out his column. Bold strategy. I think it’s the Twitter version of the rope-a-dope. Is there anything that summarizes the current trajectory of FS1 more than one of its provocateurs using a Twitter War as a marketing device? The only shock here is that King hasn’t been invited on to an FS1 primetime special with Whitlock. Maybe it’d have a chance of beating Colin Cowherd’s interview with Donald Trump in the ratings.
King hasn’t exactly responded to the criticism of his Manning piece well and it definitely appeared here that Whitlock successfully got to him and managed to come off as though he was the one taking the high road. Is that enough to give Whitlock the victory? Did King triumph? Or do we all lose in the end. You decide…
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