First Adam Gase, now Carlos Beltran; New York sports has been captured by Twitter. Burner accounts are taking the media by storm, and it doesn’t make sense.
The New York sports media is focused heavily on what happens on Twitter, the place that has become so integral to the industry that it’s become the go-to source for breaking stories. However, in recent years it’s also become the place many reporters go to find stories waiting to be broken.
The newest fad is burner accounts. This all started in December with @WyattV18. The account has since been deleted, but it released a genie that can’t be put back into its bottle.
The Wyatt account spawned a controversy over New York Jets head coach Adam Gase defending himself no twitter behind a fake account. He became the butt of jokes and lost a ton of credibility with many Jets fans.
Turns out the account was likely never owned by Adam Gase. Instead, KFCBarstool reported that the account might actually belong to New York Daily News‘ New York Jets beat reporter Manish Mehta.
That news dominated the headlines for a while before it eventually dissolved into nothingness. However, the controversy harmed the reputations of two professionals.
Now, New York Mets‘ manager Carlos Beltran is the next target. A Twitter account tagged @B15Ivan has been targeted as a Carlos Beltran burner account. The rationale is that Beltran wore the number 15 and his middle name is Ivan, the account also defends Beltran on the Twitterverse.
So now Beltran’s reputation, which is already at an all-time low, after the Astros’ scandal, is further under attack. The consensus among reporters who have covered Beltran during his time with the New York Mets is that the account isn’t likely to be his. Yet, Twitter doesn’t care.
Why does this have to happen?
Even if it was true that these people owned the account, which hasn’t been proven conclusively in either case, why should it matter? Twitter is an internet world where people are free to speak their opinion just like anyone else. If they choose to share their more controversial takes or defend themselves without their names out there, why should that matter?
These people are public figures who often can’t defend themselves otherwise they would be in breach of their contract. Even if their contract would allow it, by defending themselves on Twitter, all they would do is open themselves up to more attacks.
The New York sports media has better things to do than waste their time on burner accounts. We should be getting back to reporting actual news, not focusing on what someone may or may not say in private behind their computer.