The NFL, Twitter and Osama bin Laden

The social media juggernaut that is Twitter has caused a great many NFL headlines of late, but just how many of these headlines have come about solely as a result of the ongoing lockout is debatable.

There’s a school of thought that ESPN and other mainstream sports sites are grasping at anything even remotely resembling news to fill the typical offseason void. Another, however, believes that what athletes say in the public sphere is fair game and entertaining news for fans in its own right. The latter believe that the sports media is simply responding to demand.

It’s inevitable, with that said, that some have come to question the role of the microblogging phenomenon in the news cycle.

The truth, as it tends to, lies somewhere in between; many athlete tweets are notable in their own right, but the work stoppage has removed conventional sources of NFL news and perhaps exacerbated the amount of attention paid to them.

Two recent tweets have drawn a great deal of media attention. First, during the NFL Draft, Saints running back Reggie Bush tweeted “It’s been fun New Orleans” after the team drafted Alabama RB Mark Ingram.

Bush, who has played in only 41 games for the Saints over the past five seasons thanks to repeated injuries, expressed feelings that could easily be interpretted in a couple of different ways; as the reaction of a player bitter at his team for selecting his presumed replacement, or as a heartfelt thanks to a city that embraced Bush as a fan favorite for his electric plays on the field despite his injury issues.

Regardless, his tweet didn’t draw anywhere near as much attention as Steelers’ running back Rashard Mendenhall‘s tweets on the death of Osama bin Laden.

The contents of Mendenhall’s twin tweets following news of bin Laden’s death weren’t all that surprising. The fact that they came from Mendenhall and not, say, Dylan Avery, director of the noted conspiracy film Loose Change, were.

Mendenhall’s first tweet said, “What kind of person celebrates death? It’s amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We’ve only heard one side,” and his second said, “We’ll never know what really happened. I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style.”

Mendenhall’s first tweet, it seems, is the less controversial of the two, addressing a mass public reaction no less than eerily reminiscent of the Hate Week scene from Orwell’s 1984. Sure, he does apparently discount the irrational hatred bin Laden had for the United States and the West (plus that many of the people celebrating bin Laden’s death probably had heard him speak at one point or another on one of his ubiquitous propaganda videos), but he can be forgiven for not addressing these nuances in 140 characters or less.

However, Mendenhall’s second tweet, espousing ideas from the fringe truther movement, is more troublesome. Despite widespread acceptance of the fact that the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks were not caused by the U.S. government and detailed scientific refutations of the truther movement’s claims, certain elements within the U.S. and abroad express skepticism, as they have the right to.

The backlash against Mendenhall, which eventually cost him a sponsorship, at least partially centered around the fact that he enjoys a considerable following on Twitter. His stature as a famous athlete subjected his opinion to a great deal more scrutiny than that of the average Joe.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with Mendenhall isn’t so much the concern here. The real question – whether Twitter is a good or bad thing for athletes – hinges on whether or not one believes that athletes have a responsibility to the public at large. Should young football players look to Reggie Bush and his disappointment and emulate it when they find themselves low on the depth chart? Is Mendenhall inspiring others to embrace a deeply flawed movement?

Even these two questions can be turned on their heads: Bush could be turning this situation into motivation to perform better and Mendenhall could simply be encouraging fans to question authority. Are they? Hard to tell, but both of these tweets seem to be visceral reactions to fluid situations.

Twitter trades in these visceral reactions. It is difficult to express anything approaching nuanced thought in 140 characters or fewer. I suppose it is natural that professional athletes, whose trade is the visceral reaction produced by sports, are drawn to Twitter. Shaquille O’Nealwas one of the first to truly embrace the vehicle, using it to play up his persona as a happy-go-lucky athlete living the dream.

Cincinnati Bengals wide reciever Chad Ochocinco is among the most famous athletes onTwitter and he readily chronicles his antics (including riding a bull in a PBR completion this past Saturday) for his many followers to enjoy. There is an element of voyeurism in following Ochocinco’s tweets, but the degree to which he willingly allows the public a window into his private life is admirable.

Jason Garrison, editor of SB Nation Bengals’ blog Cincy Jungle, offers his insights on Ochocinco’s tweets as a fan and a writer. In an interview with The Good Point, Garrison underscored that it isn’t particularly material what he or anyone else thinks about athletes’ tweets, as their tweeting s a legitimate form of expression.

“Athletes are well within their rights,” he said.

That isn’t always a good thing, though. Garrison said Ochocinco’s outside interests, including tweeting, his fledging OCNN “news network” and his name changes and other promotional stunts may have backfired in recent years.

“Chad’s ‘extracurriculars’ have taken some of his focus away from the game, causing his production to slip.”

Garrison acknowledges that Ochocinco’s Twitter habit is far from the worst thing players have been involved with, though.

“It isn’t nearly as bad as getting into trouble with the police or the team like many athletes have done lately,” he said.

This would seem to support the idea of Twitter as a medium for athletes to vent whatever visceral feelings they please with relatively few consequences. Garrison also notes thatTwitter has changed the game for both athletes and media members, allowing athletes to connect directly with fans and express themselves, but making their less-refined spur-of-the-moment electronic comments fodder for the media.

“It has taken some of the exclusivity away from sports reporters around the country,” Garrison said, as it’s reduced the former role of journalists as the primary way for athletes to get their message to the public.

However, those messages can backfire, and without a filter, one slip up like Mendenhall’s can be transmitted around the globe quickly. As Garrison said, single tweets often become full news stories in this day and age.

Basic economics tells us that were there no demand for Twitter, or for social media in general, it would eventually go away. To borrow from Nike’s famous ad, we are all witnesses. Beyond that, every consumer of Ochocinco’s, Mendenhall’s or Bush’s tweets is at least partially complicit in those tweets’ continuing, no matter his or her opinions of the writers. On some level, many in media are beginning to realize this. Garrison put it best, saying that the most important thing he wants from the the Bengals’ Twitter crowd is continued tweets.

“In reality, I don’t care what they tweet as long as they don’t stop doing it,” Garrison said. “Most of it is pointless, but every once in a while (and a lot more often than you’d think), a single tweet from an athlete can be the news of the month.”

Athletes are responsible for what they produce on Twitter, but the growing interest in their tweets means fans and media play a role in what they put out there too. Milquetoast athletes who only discuss their daily lunch menu aren’t likely to pick up much of a following, but some of those like Ochocinco who offer more unusual information have seen more interest in their careers as a result.

Thus, in a way, both the writers and fans who follow them are encouraging these kinds of tweets.

With so much interest in athletes’ tweets, so many willing to spread a mistake around the world and so much pressure to be interesting, it’s not surprising that the likes of Bush and Mendenhall occasionally slip up in ways that attract widespread condemnation.

Given the volume of athletes on Twitter and how frequently many of them tweet, maybe the remarkable thing is that the service doesn’t produce more sports controversies. Maybe we should think twice before pronouncing judgment on an athlete who entertains us both on and off the field for what he or she tweets.