Twitter mistakes happen, including from us. And name mistakes happen. But with that said, a tweet from The Detroit Free Press Tuesday on a (correct) story about Chris Webber and Ben Wallace being amongst the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s 14 finalists this year was particularly funny for its mistake:
That tweet still being up six hours after it was first sent speaks well for the paper, though. A lot of these mistakes are deleted after a half hour to an hour and only preserved in screenshots, and many of those go unacknowledged by the organization that made the mistake. Instead, the Freep got in on laughing at the mistake with a Silicon Valley GIF:
And that’s cool to see. Look, the initial Twitter mistake here didn’t really affect much; even the story excerpt in the tweet was correct. And we all make mistakes. It was more humorous than anything else, especially with it being about two such prominent players. (And with there being other prominent people named “Chris Wallace,” both inside and outside the NBA.) But it’s neat to see an organization leave up a tweet that’s embarrassing for them, and to see them acknowledge their mistake with a follow-up GIF. Well played, Free Press.
[The Detroit Free Press on Twitter]
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.