Mar

11

Eagles employee fired for Facebook status

Filed Under Career, Tips 

Dan Leone was hired by the Philadelphia Eagles as the security chief for the west gate. Six years after getting an hourly wage job with his dream team, the Eagles fired Leone over his Facebook status.

See, the Eagles were unable to re-sign or unwilling to re-sign safety Brian Dawkins (I haven’t followed the situation to know what went on). Upon Dawkins signing with the Denver Broncos, Leone wrote the following Facebook status update: “Dan is [expletive] devastated about Dawkins signing with Denver. . .Dam Eagles R Retarted!!”

So why am I blogging about this firing of a security person? How is it related to sports PR? Well, this story is simply a reminder to all of us interested in sports PR to be careful of what we post on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other social networking websites. Unlike a lot of industries, it’s so easy to get caught up in sport as a fan. You may make an impulsive comment on one of those websites about a team decision and it could cost you that dream internship or job.

Leone said Vitagliano didn’t want to hear it. He said that she told him he couldn’t be trusted, that the post made the team look bad, and that the only way to resolve the situation was to fire him.

Whether you agree or disagree with the way the Eagles handled this situation, it’s important to understand that there are consequences to what you type online. I wouldn’t be surprised to see teams and companies in other industries start to create social media policies on what can or cannot be discussed on these platforms.

I gave a presentation on Twitter to my Comm class on Monday. One of the students who was already using Twitter mentioned that you need to be careful because once a tweet is out there, you can’t take it back. Sure, you can delete your tweet or a Facebook status update but people can read it before you delete it and even save a screenshot of it. So when using these different social networking platforms, exercise prudence with what you tweet. Be yourself, but consider the consequences of a tweet or status update before you post something. It could save you your job or internship.

Comments

7 Responses to “Eagles employee fired for Facebook status”

  1. 7th Woman on March 11th, 2009 10:34 am

    so much for freedom of speech.

  2. Eagles in PR Minefield over Facebook Firing « PR in Sports on March 11th, 2009 6:35 pm

    [...] Hammond at Sportsprblog.com brings up a great point. In this day and age every company should supply their employees with [...]

  3. Brian Gleason on March 11th, 2009 6:41 pm

    Great post. I think we’re going to hear a lot more about the term “social media policies” as it applies to companies in 2009. That may be a new buzz word as the year moves along.

    7th Woman,
    I don’t agree with the firing, but don’t really see this as a freedom of speech issues. If you gave an interview slamming your company, you’d probably be let go too. Social media isn’t much different.

  4. Brian Gleason on March 12th, 2009 9:46 am

    Looks like Dan Leone is doing a chat on espn.com today at 3pm EST.

  5. Christy on March 12th, 2009 2:39 pm

    Brian- Thanks for pointing that out. You can view the transcript from the chat on ESPN.com here: http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/chatESPN?event_id=25463

  6. Eye on Sports Media on March 17th, 2009 8:20 am

    @7th Woman – Free speech does not apply in this case.

  7. Jeff on April 22nd, 2009 1:42 pm

    I think the consequences for the employee’s actions were way too drastic. In my opinion, the Eagles should of just met with him and put him on probation.

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