In Wake Of School Massacre, ESPN Tells Staff To Stop Tweeting About Sports Until Sunday, Refrain From Using The Word "Shooter"

Here's the email from ESPN senior vice president and executive producer Mark Gross to staff, regarding the shootings in Newtown, Conn. Newtown is 30 miles from ESPN headquarters in Bristol.

From: Gross, Mark I. Sent: Friday, December 14, 2012 2:21 PM To: Coordinating Producers M. Gross; Producers M. Gross; Production Studio Talent Cc: Krulewitz, Josh; Scott, David R.; Keegan, Marcia; Drake, Jed; Orlando, Laurie; Wildhack, John Subject: Newtown Tragedy

Due to the tragedy in Newtown, we are doing the following for the rest of today/tonight:

-no more teases for shows

-on air talent should come on the air and acknowledge the tragedy….. we will then want to show some athletes/coaches tweeting about the tragedy before we move into highlights, etc. (it may help to soften the difficult transition as best we can)

The news desk will take the lead on the tweets

We should not be getting into specific details on the shooting—-acknowledging the incident off the top is the direction we should go

-for the time being, we should not be tweeting about sports until further notice (the Talent Office will communicate when tweeting about sports can begin again)

-refrain from using ‘shooter' or other words which are not appropriate given the tragedy

-CPs and Producers must make sure everyone is on board in production meetings today

-Tina Thornton is taking the lead with sales to eliminate any inappropriate sales elements/commercials through the weekend

-We are shutting down the ‘Showdown Sunday' label for this weekend's NFL games

Please let me know if you have any questions

Mark Gross later emailed colleagues to say that tweeting will go back to normal at noon Sunday:

From: Gross, Mark I. Sent: Friday, December 14, 2012 2:38 PM To: Coordinating Producers M. Gross; Producers M. Gross; Production Studio Talent Cc: Krulewitz, Josh; Scott, David R.; Keegan, Marcia; Drake, Jed; Orlando, Laurie; Wildhack, John Subject: RE: Newtown Tragedy-Tweeting update

Tweeting on sports can begin at noon on Sunday

Thanks very much

ESPN senior coordinating producer Gerry Matalon forwarded these emails to all ESPN talent, adding this note:

All ESPN Talent receiving this note…

Making sure you are aware to please discontinue tweeting about sports until noon on Sunday.

We are allowing insiders to tweet sports news stories (we just aren't reacting to sports news on twitter until noon on Sunday)

Thank you. -gmat