An interesting element of the current state of sports on social media is the role insiders have in breaking news. And that’s sometimes led to some prominent insiders breaking news in other sports, including NBA insider Shams Charania on the NFL and NFL insider Adam Schefter on the NBA. But on Sunday, Charania got a lot of attention for something else, and it wasn’t breaking news; it was relaying the news of President Joe Biden announcing he would end his bid for reelection, four minutes after Biden’s own X/Twitter account tweeted that.
β Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024
Joe Biden has withdrawn from the US Presidential race.
β Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) July 21, 2024
But, with no source cited in Charania’s tweet, many gave him credit for breaking the news. His tweet drew more than 10,000 retweets and more than 30,000 likes within the first 15 minutes. And many had thoughts on him supposedly “breaking” this:
Shams breaking political news is always funny π
β πππΌπ ππΌππππ (@HeatvsHaters) July 21, 2024
Shams spoiling presidential races now this is getting out of hand
β NBA University (@NBA_University) July 21, 2024
FROM SHAMS????
β WarriorsMuse (@WarriorsMuse) July 21, 2024
Shams politics bomb π
β Lakers All Day Everyday (@LADEig) July 21, 2024
That’s not to say Charania can’t tweet about political news if he wants to. And many certainly cited him as a way they learned of this, and that makes sense. Charania, known for his NBA work for The Athletic, Stadium, and FanDuel TV, has 2.3 million X/Twitter followers. That’s a fraction of the 38.2 million who follow Biden’s personal @JoeBiden account (the official @POTUS one, which transfers on transitions of power, only has 35.6 million followers), but Charania has many people with alerts for his tweets due to the significant number of times he does actually break news. And many discussed how Charania’s tweet here informed them of the news. Here’s some of that:
I learned about one of the most significant moments in recent American political history through an NBA Twitter alert. https://t.co/16pBY26WXO
β Sam Quinn (@SamQuinnCBS) July 21, 2024
Finding this out from Shams Iβm sick https://t.co/RPYaPXoPGd
β BuccoCapital Bloke (@buccocapital) July 21, 2024
this is literally how I found out https://t.co/7dC0ussWWR
β Earf Welcomer (@FanSince09) July 21, 2024
Writer Jay Caspian Kang even somewhat called this:
HE WENT FOR IT https://t.co/7QvGq3znPF pic.twitter.com/P2TF2XXggN
β kang (@jaycaspiankang) July 21, 2024
Unlike with his JJ Redick/Dan Hurley reporting, there’s no dispute that Charania’s tweet here is accurate. As noted, he sent it four minutes after the official source. But that brings up some past memories of insiders trying to take credit for out-there news, including the 2014 one from Chris Broussard (then at ESPN) that this post draws its headline from. And it also brings up questions of the frequently poor source-citation on X/Twitter.
If Charania had simply retweeted this with comment, it would be obvious he was sharing and commenting on news. That could have also been done with a tag for the Biden account. Instead, he portrayed this as his own report. And while he certainly can do that if he likes, he was not first on this. But his approach meant he still got Twitter retweets and likes as if he was a key breaker of news rather than just a relayer of information.
[Shams Charania on X/Twitter]
