There was a little twitter kerfuffle yesterday. I’ll do a little recap and then get to my point.

It started with an article on Clairton High School Senior, 5-star recruit, possibly the top national recruit and the holy grail of the recruiting battles in PA for 2017: Lamont Wade.

Wade is a defensive back and is being recruited as such. He also plays running back on the other side of the ball. Not surprising when you are the best athlete on a team. You will get maximum exposure.

Wade is moving to outside linebacker for the season. Not because he wants to play that position later, but because that is where the need is for his team.

Nice stuff. Great thing about a kid who thinks more about his team than his own stuff.

There was a little more, though.

Wade played linebacker in Clairton’s scrimmage Friday against Steel Valley. Steel Valley features WR-DB Paris Ford, a Pitt recruit and one of the best players in the WPIAL. Ford and Wade got into some sparring on Twitter, and Wade didn’t take kindly to it.

“It wasn’t a little joke. It was kind of serious,” said Wade.

Ford tweeted: “we was moving it bro stop flexin, & you the #1 DB in the nation but didn’t even watch me? Not real bro”

Wade tweeted back: “I’m being a team player n playing where my team need me while boys ineligible lol smh.”

Ford also tweeted: “Clairton gonna need a miracle this year they [stink].”

Wade said about Ford: “He was trying to take some shots about our team and everything. … We competed [in the scrimmage] and went at them. He made it seem like we didn’t.”

As a Pitt fan, it makes you catch your breath a little. You don’t want to see anything that could jeopardize getting Wade to choose Pitt over PSU, WVU, Alabama, etc. And if he has a real beef with Ford that goes beyond this, it could — possibly — be an issue. At the same time it seems a bit overblown that they would get so personal that a kid would essentially make his decision based on not going to the same school/program as someone. I’m sure the message boards for Pitt and at the other schools competing for his services buzzed a bit on this one.

And then this happened on Twitter.

Prediction: Wase doesn't go to Pitt because of Ford, who winds up at Cal, Pa. by 2018 https://t.co/b7NqehUJMt

— Ray Fittipaldo (@rayfitt1) August 30, 2016

WHAT?

Ray Fittipaldo is the Steelers beat writer for the Post-Gazette and spent a little time on the Pitt men’s basketball beat. Mainly, though, his dealings are with professional, paid players.

Beyond saying that Pitt will lose Wade because of Paris Ford, he also casts aspersions on Ford’s actual talent and/or character by suggesting the 4-star, 2017 verbal commit to Pitt will last only one season at Pitt before having to drop all the way down to D-II football to see any playing time.

Needless to say this “hot sports take” got attention — including Clairton coach and the father of Lamont Wade and Paris Ford’s dad (man, everyone is on twitter).

There were the cries of bias, of how the entire P-G is staffed by Pitt haters. How much the media in the Pittsburgh area seems to enjoy taking shots at Pitt. All the usual.

The main thing, though, still seemed to be an adult, seasoned reporter taking really cheap shots at a high schooler. Yes, a high-profile one. But still a kid. Almost like Fittipaldo forgot he is not dealing with a paid NFL player.

And then Fittipaldo made it worse with the non-apology of claiming he made an ill-worded tweet that people misinterpreted.

My tweet this morning was meant as a commentary on H.S. players transferring schools. Never meant to offend anyone. Wish Paris well at Pitt.

— Ray Fittipaldo (@rayfitt1) August 30, 2016

Safe to say, no one bought it. The idea that he was actually commenting on players transferring?

It was the idiocy on the follow-up that stunned me.

Twitter can be great. So much news quickly getting broken and the interaction on the platform is generally a net positive. One of the downsides is that same immediacy. You react and type stuff sometimes before fully processing.

There is not a person who tweets with any regularity that hasn’t made some really dumb tweets (I am SO including myself in this). You see something. Read something. Hear something… And just react.

Whether as a fan, as a parent, as a peer it doesn’t matter. You react and something ill-formed, ill-considered, and just plain stupid gets tweeted. It happens. That is why there is the delete option with twitter. Yes it still gets screen-shotted from now to eternity, but it allows you to at least acknowledge that should not have come out of your feed.

An apology helps. I believe in them more than deleting stupid shit. A real apology.

Fittipaldo shouldn’t be fired or suspended over anything like this. Not that he is at any real risk for that. I only mention this as an aside, because you always get people who immediately want to go nuclear when someone makes a mistake. Especially in sports with their team or school. That kind of overreaction doesn’t do anyone any good. If anything, it makes it easier to dismiss the complaints because the desire for a pound of flesh far outweighs the screw-up.

I honestly don’t think Fittipaldo did anything more than react stupidly to the article — initially. He took a shot at Ford because he didn’t think about Ford as anything but a football player like the ones he covers in the NFL. Just fired off a hot take as if the story is all there is to the character of the kid like any other mouth-breather that calls in to 90% sports talk radio.

But what Fittipaldo did afterwards was what bothered me. It was not even a non-apology. It was an outright lie of his motivations. Own your screw-up. Don’t treat everyone else who reads your feed or saw the tweet as a moron.

I think the non-apology from members of the media is worse than from almost any other public-type figure. Not because they should be held to a higher standard. But because they are the ones who generally have to report this bullshit from politicians, business executives, athletes, agents, et cetera. They know how meaningless it is. How empty and transparent it is.