Even in the age of verified blue checkmarks, people and media outlets regularly get fooled by fake Twitter accounts, and it looks like ESPN is the latest victim there. Following the Chicago Bulls’ trade of Mike Dunleavy Jr. to the Cleveland Cavaliers to clear room for Dwyane Wade, ESPNews aired a segment on the trade that included tweets from a fake Dunleavy account. Here’s video, via @HistoricalRyan:
They subsequently took plenty of flak for this from those who knew Dunleavy didn’t have a Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/thanny10/status/750886446236655617
What’s really odd here is that the @MikeDunleavyJr account cited doesn’t have a verified blue checkmark on Twitter, but it does on the screen. Does that mean ESPN added that in themselves to make it seem more credible? That’s the accusation they got from many:
However this happened, ESPN definitely has some explaining to do.
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About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.