The CBS telecast of Sunday’s San Diego Chargers-Baltimore Ravens game experienced a moment of embarrassment after reporter Jamie Erdahl shared information she got from a fake Twitter account.
Erdahl reported during the fourth quarter that Steve Smith Sr. had a torn Achilles’ tendon. At the time, the team had not released the injury news, so Erdahl attributed the information to NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport.
The nice thing is Erdahl gave a competitor credit for the report. The bad thing is Rapoport never actually reported that news about Smith; Erdahl was quoting a fake Rapoport Twitter account. She later retracted:
Though it was embarrassing for CBS and Erdahl to get caught quoting a phony account, at least the information turned out to be accurate. Smith did suffer a torn Achilles’ tendon and is out for the season.
Though it’s an embarrassing error, don’t beat yourself up over it, Erdahl. These Twitter accounts are tough to keep track of. We’ve had to retract stories before from being fooled. We’ve even seen other broadcasting networks fooled in embarrassing fashion too.
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