The stunning death of Steve McNair over the holiday weekend is the perfect media storm. You have a famous and popular professional athlete shot and killed in Nashville, TN in what police are saying is a homicide. You have a mistress, a gun and lots of questions. All the makings of a great story. It’s also the perfect social media storm.

If you read the tweets from the past three days, you have many people speculating about what happened. That’s the thing about Twitter. You can speculate out loud.

Take this exchange between CBS’s Armen Keteyian, who use to roam the sidelines covering the NFL, and ESPN information guru Adam Schefler from earlier today:

1. 
   ArmenKeteyian I may be completely wrong, but the more I think about the Steve McNair shooting the more I believe a third party was involved. 06 Jul 2009 from web
2. 
   Adam_Schefter @ArmenKeteyian….what makes you think there’s a 3rd party, Armen? Very curious. 06 Jul 2009 from web
3. 
   ArmenKeteyian @Adam_Schefter Adam, nothing more than reporter’s intuition. crime scene, hidden life, unanswered questions. I could very well be wrong. 06 Jul 2009 from web in reply to Adam_Schefter

Before Twitter, this conversation would be done privately via email or text. Now anyone following these two reporters can listen in. Keteyian has no information to support his opinion on a possible third party, but so what? He says it’s “nothing more than reporter’s intuition” which keeps in the spirit of Twitter–as long as you can fit your brain dump in 140 characters or less.

Keteyian was in a tweeting mood as earlier Monday, he responded to a question from former heavyweight boxing champ Buster Douglas:

1. 
   iambuster @ArmenKeteyian do you think his wife Armen? 06 Jul 2009 from web in reply to ArmenKeteyian
2. 
   ArmenKeteyian @iambuster don’t dare speculate on others; location of 4 SM bullets and gun under body raise ???. autopsies, ballistics obv crucial. 06 Jul 2009 from web in reply to iambuster

Now, what Douglas is referring to is McNair’s wife, Mechelle, who has not been named as a suspect in the shooting. What’s interesting about this is what fascinates me about Twitter–the direct access. Keteyian is the chief investigative correspondent for CBS News. Safe to say he’s a busy guy, gestating lots of information coming in and going out. But only on Twitter could there be an exchange between a wash out celebrity athlete like Buster Douglas and a reporter the stature of Keteyian.  It provides a platform for reporters to publicize what they are thinking, which is why the information gateway also raises questions.

Should reporters be speculating openly, publicly about a murder investigation? In light of reports late Monday that McNair’s girlfriend–who was found dead with McNair–had recently bought a gun that was found at the scene, it makes you wonder about the unfiltered cadance of Twitter. Reporters are chronic skeptics. But just because we have a vehicle to document our curiosity, does that mean we should?

What do you think? Do you feel reporters need to be careful about what they Tweet about?

Jon Kerr is a co-editor of Breaking Tweets Sports. You can find him on Twitter @enlightnedmedia.

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