Washington Post suspends writer Mike Wise for fake Roethlisberger Tweet

It took the internet by storm yesterday when Washington Post sportswriter Mike Wise posted on his Twitter that Ben Roethlisberger’s suspension was going to be five games, not six.

Right away a number of big name outlets that cover various Tweets and look for story ideas started to pick up the story. The smart ones gave Wise, who in the end was playing a joke on the rest of the net – for some reason – credit for the story.

After Wise said sorry for the error, the Post stepped in today, and suspended the writer for 30 days for trying to outsmart the rest of the world. This after everyone else slammed him for trying to be funny.

The Washington Post sportswriter and columnist was suspended Tuesday for one month after deliberately posting a phony scoop on Twitter, an experiment to see how widely it would be picked up. Wise apologized and said he accepted the punishment for what he called a “horrendous mistake.”

“I’m not a journalism ombudsman,” Wise said in an interview, “and I found that out in a very painful, hard way. I need to take my medicine and move on, and promise everybody this will never happen again.”

Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli said he could not comment on a personnel matter. “We have a policy, and we expect people to follow it,” he said.

I am on the side of the Post here, as they needed to sit this guy down for simply crying wolf. The reason Wise said he put the tweet up was to see how many people he could trick into re-posting it. Uh, ok.

Good move by the Post, and hopefully Wise will wise up in the future.