It started with a nasty dispute between a cable provider and a sports channel. It quickly became one of the greatest public journalist fights in Twitter history.
For the past seven weeks, Time Warner Cable has blacked out the Madison Square Garden Network. The conflict is, of course, rooted in money: MSG wants more, and Time Warner Cable is reluctant to pay more. The glaring effect of this is that MSG owns broadcasting rights for the Knicks, meaning its customers have completely missed out on Linsanity.
Richard Sandomir, a New York Times TV sports columnist with just over 9,000 followers, tweeted at 3:05 Eastern Time on Friday afternoon that MSG and Time Warner had resolved their dispute.
Thirty-nine minutes later, Darren Rovell, one of the most flamboyant, popular (over 182,000 followers) and frequently-criticized sports journalists on Twitter, posted that he had “Confirmed @RichSandomir’s Report.”
Sandomir took offense to the tone of Rovell’s tweet. What unfolded was knock-down, drag-out war of words. Below is a Storify of the dispute, peppered with commentary from clever third parties.