I wanted to take a few minutes to weigh in on the Twitter spat, such as it is, between DeWayne Peevy (@uksidpeevy) and, well, the media. I know none of the principals involved in this and I really have no interest other than I worked in sport PR for years, have a second edition of my textbook Sport Public Relations coming out in March (shameless plug) and find this stuff fascinating.

Gary Parrish of CBSSports.com wrote a column yesterday rehashing old accusations of recruiting misconduct involving Anthony Davis and the University of Kentucky. Sure the piece contains old news and appears to be a hatchet job on the part of Parrish, a college basketball writer in the middle of summer with nothing to write about, but Peevy should not have reacted the way he did. Peevy took to Twitter to suggest UK would deny Parrish a credential to Kentucky basketball games this year. To Parrish’s credit, he did not take the bait and respond via Twitter.

In the world of PR, picking a fight with the media over old news like this is career suicide. The story that is national this morning is not the Parrish story, but Peevy’s comments. The Associated Press Sports Editors group picked up on it early today and it was quickly widely re-Tweeted, including by me.

By doing this, Peevy not only shifted the story to something even more negative for Kentucky, he violated a number of statements in the CoSIDA Code of Ethics. I don’t know for certain Peevy is a member of CoSIDA, but most major college SIDs are members.

The operative line in the CoSIDA Code of Ethics is this:

Fairness

* Collegiate sports public relations and communications professionals deal fairly with media, student-athletes and the public, respecting all opinions and their right of free expression

Certainly, journalists have their own code which is readily available at the Society of Professional Journalists, but we know journalists often sell out for page views and other metrics.

The take-away lesson from this is the need for SIDs, or any other sports public relations professional, is to not act on emotion, and respect their role in not making a negative story worse.

Full disclaimer on this. I am a lifelong Los Angeles Dodgers fan fanatic. Read my biography page to share in the wonder that was John Hale in 1975. Additionally, I advocated sports organizations credentialing bloggers as media (Sports Business Journal $ link) nearly four years ago. (Above photo credit to SoSG Steve Sax)

So it is with predicable bias that I share the results of last night's Annual Blogger Night at Dodger Stadium. VP of Communications Josh Rawitch designed this three years ago, and the positive PR the team receives strikes me as worth every inconvenience (real or perceived) it may cause. Josh discussed it on his highly read blog here, but the list of "bribes" (as Steve Sax of Sons of Steve Garvey describes it) included:

• Media passes
• A private suite (#216 for those of you familiar with Dodger Stadium) with free food, on a Monday night game against a mid-level opponent, the Florida Marlins
• Access to Dodger executives Ned Colletti (who stayed for an hour), Kim Ng, and Dennis Mannion, former players Sweet Lou Johnson and Ron Cey, plus the Miller delivery guy (which I guess is cool)

Following is a sample of posts and recaps from last night's game. As you scan through these, consider a couple of things. Readership for each varies from a couple of dozen to perhaps a couple hundred. These are written by, and read by, fans, many of whom BUY Dodger tickets, bobbleheads, t-shirts, etc. (Heck, Delino of Sons of Steve Garvey even sported the team's logo to Blogger Night). Fans often congregate on these sites to share comments as the game is taking place.

And, perhaps most importantly, by creating a dialogue with its fans, the team is strengthening its relationship with its core consumers. Those who watch games, post pictures on Twitter, and generally support the team during times of prosperity and not. Sports marketers beat themselves up trying to figure out ways to create long-term relationships with their fans. Communications professionals have the opportunity to do just that, and they don't need to FedEx rubber chickens (see Jon Spoelstra's Marketing Outrageously).

• Dodger Dugout Recap
• Dodgerfan.net Recap
• Sons of Steve Garvey Recap
• True Blue LA's Recap (part of SBNation)
• Vin Scully is My Homeboy Recap (plus many additional Twitpics) and his anticipatory post
• Other blogs will undoubtedly post recaps as a total of 15 different sites were represented. The 2009 night elicited this post from True Blue LA's Eric Stephen. "Welcome to Heaven". How much does that type of positive imagery cost a marketer?

Oh, yeah, the Dodgers lost 6-5. But most of the above recaps don't emphasize that.