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Earlier today we addressed the controversy that has arisen from the response to the death of Dwayne Haskins. The article specifically focused on Adam Schefter’s lack of an apology for a misdirected (and deleted) tweet and Schefter’s habit of not smearing anything negative on a Twitter page that’s approaching 10 million followers, including apologies for his various missteps .
Late Monday afternoon, Schefter finally did what he should have done on Saturday. He posted an apology on Twitter. But there seemed to be a strategic element to it. Rather than simply posting an apology on Twitter – which he could have done anytime on Saturday or Sunday – Schefter took the opportunity to drive traffic to his podcast, where a three-minute and 33-second clip has reaped 944,000 views since this posting.
“It was insensitive‘ said Schetter. “It was a mistake. And I can assure you that is not my intention. I wish I could have that tweet back. The focus should have been on Dwayne who he was as a person, husband, friend and so much more .I wanted to apologize to Dwayne’s family, friends and the players of the National Football League and offer my condolences to everyone close to Dwayne.”
Schefter doesn’t address why it took him two days to apologize. Also, the words quoted above were not tweeted by Schefter. All that appears on his Twitter page is “an apology and tribute to Dwayne Haskins” with a link to the podcast clip.
This only reinforces the reality that he is being very cautious about what he is going to post on his Twitter page. He could have posted exactly what he said in a thread of tweets. Why not? Why push people to click a clip from his podcast?
Again, we all make mistakes. How we correct them becomes much more instructive. Schefter appears to be shielding his Twitter page from loud apologies. In this particular case, he appears to be using his Twitter feed to generate traffic for a podcast that isn’t nearly as powerful as his Twitter profile.