Category: Social Media Page 5 of 7

Finds and facts about using social media in journalism.

The new kid in the downpour of fresh ideas

On May 13, 2010

When you’ve spent your entire professional career in a newspaper’s newsroom, it’s pretty easily to get your mind blown at a startup. I can attest to that firsthand in my first few days on the job at TBD.

Instead of shoehorning some new media approach into a centuries-old tradition, we’re building something so new, it’s still somewhat intangible – and that’s the fun part. It’s also sort of terrifying.

Because we haven’t launched yet, there are no deadlines, per se (which is a tough adjustment from my last few years working in breaking news). Our deadline for now is launch – and then infinite thereafter as we continue to add new features and tweak tools.

Right now, there are no rules, but I wouldn’t call it lawless, either. All of us currently involved with TBD have extensive experience in news and/or the social sphere. We know the framework of what we’re working toward, the rest is totally up for grabs.

In the past few days, I’ve been in several meetings with the rest of the community engagement staff where we have been brainstorming TBD’s processes for reader participation, community newsgathering and the all-important continuous breaking news. There are only five of us in a room, but it’s a hurricane of what-ifs and how-about-wes.

Not once has anyone said, “We can’t do that” or “That isn’t possible”. That’s a great feeling.

I know those times are coming. Some ideas will make it and others won’t. For now, though, I’m just trying to get a word in edgewise in a newsroom full of energy and rapid-fire ideas.

In addition to these sessions, we’re crowdsourcing our TBD plans, so if you have ideas you’d like to share, please do.

The community hosts are already miles ahead of me, working hard to recruit good bloggers for our network. I, on the other hand, am desperately trying to catch up.

I’ve found being the social media producer for a website that doesn’t exist in a city that doesn’t know you is a pretty tall order. All that community I built around myself in Cincinnati is now far, far away – so now the new task is cracking the Twitter code of this area.

In preparation to launch the TBD Twitter account(s) in the near future, I’m currently working on building up my own DC base on Twitter, figuring out who to follow for breaking news, community tips, laughs and tips about cheap beer. I’m working on finding the “nodes” (as my former editor was fond of calling them), that is, the Kevin Bacons on the metro DC social media sphere who are followed by and follow everyone important.

That’ll take some time, I know. I’m just not very patient. Have ideas/suggestions? You know the drill.

Devil’s advocate: Like it or not, site comments represent the community

By Mandy

On March 25, 2010

In Social Media

All of the talk here and elsewhere on news site comments lately has had my brain working overtime. It’s obvious from all the, heh, commentary, that the content of news website comments is a big thorn in the side of most journalists and steadfast news junkies. I hear about it every day.

“They’re toxic.”

“That’s not conversation.”

“They don’t represent the community at all.”

Or do they?

It isn’t a possibility I as a member of the human race would like to face, but what if these comments that we insist only come from fringe corners of the mean old interwebs really do represent our communities?

Consider this… When I encounter particularly prolific, appalling or trollish accounts on Cincinnati.Com, I’ll look up their IP address to see if they’re posting from our coverage area. In these random hunts, I have never found one that wasn’t local.

For better or worse, these members do represent part of the readership we claim to serve. As ugly as it might be, they are part of the fabric of this community, so should we as a news organization and conversation hub be trying to suppress their opinions?

We know, at the very least, they represent the most vocal and opinionated elements of the community. They simply care more than those who oppose them.

So how much responsibility does the community itself bear for allowing toxic, racist, partisan trolls to represent the coverage area at large? If the rest of the community has a problem with their viewpoints, registration on Cincinnati.Com is free. Why not take them on? At the very least, you to are free to correct them and share your views, too. You can’t let the crazies win.

I don’t necessarily believe this, of course. I know good moderation, staff interaction and better comment tools can help shape comments into conversation. These are, however, the sort of questions we have to be asking ourselves if we as journalists really want to be part of the communities in which we live and work.

“These people” are out there. Some are subscribers. All are readers. Chew on that for a bit and let me know what you think.

Twitter is the perfect place to break news (but don’t tell Reuters)

By Mandy

On March 18, 2010

In Industry News & Notes, Twitter

When Reuters released its new social media policy last week, their competition had to be salivating. The wire service appears to be digging its own grave by stipulating in no uncertain terms that its reporters are not to use social media to break news. All news is to be broken on the Reuters wire, no exceptions.

The idea of spurning social media for breaking news in order to protect your wire service would be a little like an early 90s telephone service provider spurning the notion of developing an Internet service, instead allowing competitors to use its lines to serve up dial-up service to its customers.

Truth is, Twitter is the perfect medium for breaking news. I think of it as the latest incarnation of the “this just in!” radio bulletin. As a tool, it is immediate, mobile, searchable by keyword and location, you can easily see who has passed on your news (via RTs), link traffic is easily tracked and, best of all, it has your brand attached so you can get credit for the scoop.

There is absolutely nothing more satisfying to this newshound than a series of re-tweets on my item from readers – and even better when it includes a begrudging re-tweet from my competitors.

If a news outlets that uses the Reuters wire is the first to post an item to a social media, it will look as if they broke that news. Their link to the same Reuters content will be the one passed around from retweet to retweet. One would think they might want to get their name on it first – but guess not.

I see this play out every day on my Tweetdeck, as the local TV stations battle to tweet out the latest kooky AP news item from 200 miles away first. I always can’t help but think, “Gee, why isn’t the AP trying to get this into this market’s Twittersphere before local news outlets even get the chance?”

In the end, it won’t matter if they broke the news on the wires first. Most readers don’t read the wires, they read either their preferred media site or social media to get their news. As more and more news organizations take advantage of using Twitter to break news (or in the case of the BBC, mandating it), news providers who are late to the party on every story will eventually render themselves pretty useless as breaking news resources.

It’s downright shameful that an industry leader in breaking news (including some of the biggest breaking news events of the 20th century), would just let that go in favor of protecting a corner of the market that doesn’t benefit its readers or its reporters.

I have to say, the rest of the policy is rather helpful. It largely focuses on explaining how journalists can manage professional and personal brands on Twitter, including guidelines for making corrections in the social media sphere and avoiding accusations of bias with a thorough look at one’s social media profiles. All good info to know.

Kirkland trial coverage shows us why good beat reporting still matters

By Mandy

On March 8, 2010

In Rants, Social Media

If you’re in Cincinnati, you’ve no doubt been bombarded with news of the trial of serial killer Anthony Kirkland, which started last week here in Hamilton County. If you aren’t familiar, here’s a little background. Really, it isn’t all that important to the point of this post.

The local coverage of this high-profile trial has provided a demonstration in action of how important the very roots of good court reporting still are in this age of social media.

There’s no less than two TV stations live blogging the trial and several outlets and reporters live-tweeting the proceedings, including Enquirer court reporter Kimball Perry. Fox19 has a very interesting Dipity timeline on the case (kudos to them). This is all in addition to the exhaustive video, stories, photo galleries, etc. that we usually are serving up at a trial like this.

Honestly, it’s all gotten to a point where I believe readers may be over-saturated with coverage.

Even with all of this going on, thing’s get missed. Kimball has been scooping the heck out of the people recording the event live right next to him because, well, he knows what’s going on. At one point, a couple of local TV reporters asked him what just happened and what it meant. They knew he knew – and he was explaining all of it on his Twitter feed (and shooting Flip videos).

This isn’t to knock on TV competition or social media, but merely to underscore how even with all of this technology available and a million ways to describe what’s happening, it is the oldest skill set in the toolbox that has offered one-of-a-kind insight into a difficult case.

This isn’t something Kimball does just for big trials, he’s in that courtroom every day. He found out the defendant was pleading guilty before anyone else because he knew who to ask – and how to ask. A lot of our competitors don’t have reporters in court often enough and long enough to soak up the experience, lingo and legal know-how to cover a trial the way Kimball does.

That’s just what good beat reporting’s all about – and it’s something we seem to have less of all the time as we have to do more with less. Twitter and live blogs and all that are great tools for enhancing the way readers get news, but it’s tough to replace the know-how of an experienced beat reporter.

We’ve also found that the newfangled tools available aren’t always the best options depending on the circumstances.

This fascination with live-blogging at the local level started last spring during a similarly high-profile trial in Warren County, where a young newlywed was accused (and convicted) of killing his young wife. Local TV station WLWT sent reporter Travis Gettys to live blog the trial using CoveritLive. It was immensely popular and Gettys became something of a local celebrity – it was good stuff.

We have Cover it Live and use it for chats and live blogs sometimes. We could have used it in that trial, but we chose not to. Our reporter in that case, Janice Morse, strongly believed her coverage would be better informed and more comprehensive if she were paying strict attention to the trial and not describing the proceedings.

While I think both kinds of coverage would be valuable to readers – we could only send one person, so we opted for the old way. She said that over the course of the trial, those live-somethinging the proceedings had asked her what was going on, what a particular term meant, etc. And rightly so, I know from live blogging past events that you don’t always really take in what’s going on, information sort of passes through you. That can make it very tough to go back and write a comprehensive story at the end of the day.

The live blog is just one tool – and one we don’t always have to use. The same goes for Twitter, video, carrier pigeons and anything else me might try to get out info to readers. When it comes down to it, sometimes you just need someone to help explain stuff. That’s our job.

We don’t have to be everywhere at once

By Mandy

On February 26, 2010

In Social Media

Every industry blog that’s into social media, including this one, loves to tell newsies about the latest and greatest social media craze and How Your Newspaper is Getting Left Behind (!!).

For weeks I’ve been thinking of writing one of these posts on Four Square, as everyone else has, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it.

While I have been dreaming up some ways my paper can use geolocation services in regards to marketing, branding, advertising and repurposing news content, I simply cannot bring myself to suggest that newsroom personnel omgjusthavetobedoingthisrightnow. No, just no.

Sure, it’d be great to have reporters go out and leave tips, links and trivia all over town on FourSquare, but I have to consider how much I’m willing to give up for that. I don’t know what it is like at everyone else’s newsroom, but I don’t have extra people waiting around for work to do – and frankly, I’d much rather have an online update from the courthouse by 10 am than a bunch of tips on where to find great public art on Four Square or Gowalla.

We in the social media cheerleader camp need a reality check sometimes. I’m frequently the one saying “We’ll find time, just don’t say no yet”, but as I’ve found myself stretched to run the news site and tweet and send email alerts and monitor traffic and and and – I know we can’t say yes to everything anymore. More importantly, we new media snobs shouldn’t feel as if we’re dinosaurs because we aren’t here, there and everywhere on every social network.

Case in point: Right after Google Buzz launched, Old Media New Tricks (who I love, by the way) was on the case, telling us how papers should get their Buzz profiles set up and hop to the status updates. While I don’t blame them for suggesting it (they do need to get blog readers after all) I had to question it. Not every newsroom can afford to have a staffer who can send status updates to a myriad of services all day. With the still-limited spread of Buzz and widespread popularity of Twitter, why divert our already-stretched resources there? It simply fueled the notion we social media types tend to have that says, “Well, this is out there and someday you’re going to look dumb if you weren’t doing it a long time ago.”

I recently attended a presentation by some incredibly talented social media gurus in my local network and one part of their message especially rang out loud and clear to this harried soul: Pick a few social media practices that work for you and do them well.

We as an industry should take that to heart.

Every newsroom should have a goal in mind for their social media use – and then should pick and choose the right tools to best go after that goal without sacrificing what’s important. Consider how seamlessly a social media practice will fit into the newsroom’s workload – and consider if a new idea is worth taking a staff member away from this task or that task (if that’s the case).

It isn’t always a good investment of your limited resources to chase every social media rainbow that comes along – picking just a few is more than OK.

How the National Enquirer is using social media to campaign for a Pulitzer

By Mandy

On January 13, 2010

In Industry News & Notes, Social Media

If you are one of the few that didn’t fall into Monday’s link bait trap put on by Politics Daily, you might not know about Emily Miller’s piece in which she argues that the National Enquirer should be considered for a Pulitzer for breaking the story of John Edwards’ extramarital affair and love child.

Ignoring the basis of her argument, let’s examine the excellent social media marketing at play here.

The entire tone of the piece is aimed at stoking the fires behind a largely-imagined competition between the National Enquirer and “mainstream media” that is widely-believed and argued by a certain corner of the political spectrum. Never mind that a vast majority of the Enquirer‘s stories – think weight gains/losses, celeb rehab, who’s sleeping with who – are not of any interest to most “mainstream” news outlets anyway (but that’s besides the point).

Note the only quoted source in the story. Note the author in the comments of the story stoking that political fire. See her later the same day actively campaigning for the Enquirer getting the Pulitzer on Twitter. Note the National Enquirer, the same day, writing its own story about Miller’s story, praising her campaigning. Watch the Twitter stream reaction from said media competition theorists. Then see the link bait everywhere (you too, Mr. Romenesko).

The entire Issue-with-a-capital-I has been re-framed as Biased/Mainstream Media is preventing the Upstart/Misunderstood National Enquirer from getting a Pulitzer instead of asking if the story is worth journalism’s highest honor in the first place. Miller and the National Enquirer fed the beast in just the right ways to both get huge gains from their regular bases and a whole new crowd of big media haters who bit the competition bait.

It’s brilliant marketing and more media outlets should take note.

See, the National Enquirer has been using social media to change its brand’s reputation ever since the Edwards story started rolling out in 2007 and 2008. I don’t know how it started, but somehow they have managed to market themselves as a certain-kind-of-conservative’s go-to brand, along with Fox News, of news that is perceived by fans as non-mainstream and unbiased in a world of mainstream and Left-leaning news outlets.

Every day I keep a cursory eye on a Twitter search for the word “enquirer” (to keep an eye out for mentions of my own newspaper, The Cincinnati Enquirer). At least a half-dozen times during my work day that stream will feature someone saying the National Enquirer is a more reliable source for news than “mainstream” news. You can’t really buy that kind of word-of-mouth love, especially after decades of having such a negative brand reputation.

We as an industry are generally awful about marketing ourselves and managing our brands. I’m not saying you need to actively wage a campaign like this to get noticed, but baby steps help a lot. Somewhere along the line, journalists got the notion that you can’t be good in this business unless everyone thinks your newspaper sucks and to hell with them if they don’t like it. I don’t think this works anymore.

Right now, when bloggers and users in social media denigrate our reporters or brands, the strategy is to keep quiet and don’t let them see you sweat. At worst, some outlets and media companies go further than that to actively alienate and discredit the detractors as a defensive maneuver, which never seems to go over well in the long run.

What we should be doing is contacting the writers, leaving comments and answering questions. We should defend our work and people when necessary and apologize when it’s warranted. We should go on record for interviews, return phone calls and emails – you know, do all those things that companies do when they want to be liked. Even when you don’t have to respond to criticism, we should be out there putting our best foot forward. Start by talking up your work and your paper’s efforts to local bloggers, your competition and your Twitter and Facebook friends. Involve the community in upcoming changes (eve the bad ones) and seek feedback whenever you can.

At the very least, take a cue from the Enquirer on this – you need to have fans somewhere. Find them, court them and keep them in the loop…then you can say to hell with everyone else.

10 ways journalists can look like Twitter newbies

By Mandy

On January 8, 2010

In Surviving, Twitter

I read a lot of Twitter feeds from reports and news outlets in my area (and at my paper) and I frequently see lots of little mistakes here and there that just make we mince and think, “Oh, those haters on the Internets are going to have a field day making fun of this newb.” Admittedly, I may even be one of those haters some days.

You don’t have to be some online expert to look like you belong on Twitter – just avoid doing the following and nobody will know you’re a dog (or just an old-school journalist) on Twitter.

1. You sign your tweets

In my book, this is the biggest sign that someone is a journo without a clue. Do you seriously need a byline on your tweet? If it is your own account, your name and picture should already be on it. If it is your news outlet’s account, I repeat: Do you really need a byline on a tweet? You only have 140 characters to work with and you’re wasting them if you feel the need to sign your name to the sentence you just blasted out.

2. You ask the Twittersphere to respond by direct message

Probably the most frequent error I see. If you put an inquiry out on Twitter, do not ask people to reply by DM. Just ask them to reply. Why? Because if you aren’t following the person who wants to reply to your plea for sources, they can’t get through to you. Ask for replies or put your email out there instead.

3. You put out general links instead of specific links

I know you really, really want people to read your blog or website, but you don’t have to make it a chore. If you want to promote a certain post, send the link to the post. If they like your blog, they’ll bookmark it or subscribe by RSS – they don’t need your site’s home page force-fed to them on Twitter. Especially avoid saying, “New post about blahblahblah at yourhomepage.com! Check it out!” Someone might come across that tweet in a Google search two weeks from now and that post/story may be off your front page by then. Don’t waste people’s time. Use a URL shortener like bit.ly or tinyurl if you need to fit in a long link.

4. You don’t post links at all

The absolute worst. Don’t say, “I’ve got a new story/blog post about X up online now. Check it out!” Everyone who sees your name on Twitter doesn’t know your website or your news outlet. You’re part of the stream that could be coming from lots of Twitter sources – and you’ll quickly be forgotten if you do this. Right after they laugh at you.

5. You never reply to anyone else

Twitter is not a tool for you to blast out links to your work. It’s a space for interacting with your followers and asking questions of those you follow. Even if you only reply by direct message to friends’ inquiries, you need to reply when you are asked a question. you should also take the time to read others’ tweets and reply once in awhile. You might even learn something!

6. You don’t follow anyone

Slightly worse than #5. Everything said there applies. Don’t know anyone on Twitter yet? Go to Twellow and search by your beat, city or interests and start following some people. Go to Muck Rack and follow other journalists or news organizations. And re-read #5 – if people reply to you, follow them. Make them the beginning of your Twitter circle

7. You never re-tweet

This is a clear sign that you only use Twitter to push out your own content and don’t read anyone else’s. If someone says something interesting, if they reply to you and you want to share it or they pass out a link you’d like to pass on, hit re-tweet. It takes less than a second to pass on someone else’s tweet to your followers. Have you never read a tweet from someone else worth that one second? If you aren’t using a Twitter client with a re-tweet function, there’s also a button to re-tweet on the web form (just hover over the tweet with your mouse and you’ll see it).

8. You use your news outlets main website as your web link in your profile

Sure, it’s a minor point – but it makes you look like a journalist without a clue. If someone wants to contact you off Twitter, this link doesn’t help. If you have a blog or a profile page on your paper’s site or on your own, link it there. If you have a Google Profile, Facebook page, Linked In account or anything at all that reflects you, put that link there. Think about it, would you ever believe a source whose contact information was so incomplete? Which leads me to…

9. You don’t have a profile picture

If you use the default icon on Twitter, 90% of users will just assume you are a spammer or simply someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing. Again, would you trust a source without a face or some sort of recognizable image? It doesn’t have to be “you” per se (though it would help your cause), but it shows you made the basic bit of effort to complete your profile.

10. You exclusively tweet just about your published work

I’m not saying you have to get personal or tell everyone what you ate for lunch, I’m just saying you need to loosen up a little. Tell your followers who you’re meeting with today, what you’re working on or what’s going on at a event you’re covering. Feel free to add comment or answer questions on the news of the day (within all the usual ethical limitations of course) or re-tweet info from other users. Or, if you’re really feeling comfortable, go ahead and get personal. Readers and sources can like journalists when they seem like real people.

Links roundup: Media law news, paid content and crazy ideas

By Mandy

On November 11, 2009

In Online Revenue Models, Recommended Links, Twitter

Media Law News

Geanne Rosenberg, writing for the Nieman Lab, jumps into the Federal Shield conversation, asserting that student journalists should also get the protections of their professional counterparts. If you read this blog, you know I’m a big proponent for citizen journalists, bloggers and other “non-professionals” to get this protection, so kudos to her for recognizing the rights of students as well.

The Nieman Lab has an overview of a longer paper from Marion Fremont-Smith at Harvard law about the non-profit model for funding news. There are a lot of questions out there as to whether or not tax law might need to be changed to allow for a current for-profit news org to become non-profit. Fremont-Smith’s paper argues there should be no new guidelines or legislation needed to make this happen.

A very interesting case is going on right now where TV personality Glenn Beck is essentially trying to use domain name laws to out an online critic (and it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere). While it goes against the reason behind the law, it certainly is a creative way to circumvent other media law to take down those who oppose your point of view.

Who’s charging for content – or not

For those keeping score….

Talking Points Memo: Exploring a membership model, but not an all-encompassing pay wall.
Newsday – Creating a subscribers-only pay wall – and Steve Outing thinks they’re nuts & suggests a micropayment model.
Dallas Morning News – DMN is betting on readers being willing to pay more to have a better newspaper – not online yet, but in print.
Speaking of “premium content” that is “worth paying for”, Outing started a great discussion about what content readers might be willing to buy.
And now for something completely different. Check out the new site for the non-profit Texas Tribune if you haven’t already. It’s lovely – simple, clean, easy-to-read. And everyone’s really hopeful this is a news experiment that will succeed.

Crazy ideas worth hearing

Robert Niles has a provocative idea – evaluate whether or not your site really needs to be in Google News, Crazy? Maybe, but check it out. There’s some potentially mind-blowing food for thought about why news sites and blogs may not want to be involved with Google News – and it isn’t about that silly “freeloading” nonsense. He argues that search engine page views aren’t “quality” views and they might be leading to more spam.

Or, if you really hate Google and you’re Rupert Murdoch, you’ll insist the search engine is stealing your stuff against your will. Google finally had enough of the News Corp. owner, saying that if he really doesn’t want Google indexing his sites, he can be removed. Of course, this blogger thinks Murdoch knew that already.

Newspaper-sponsored blog networks! Catch the wave! While it certainly isn’t the first such blog network (ahem), the Guardian is hiring bloggers to cover local news.

And seriously, it’s been said before and said again, this time by Paid Content: When is someone going to buy Breaking News Online ? They’re the best there is at breaking news online – and yet, they are still independent.

And a word or two about the Twitter

Social Media Today has a great bit of coverage about Twitter lately i just had to share.

For one, there’s a much-needed reality check on Twitter’s trending topics from the folks at Social Media Today, more importantly, do those topics really reflect what people are actually talking about or what is really going on in the world?

They also take a refreshing look at Twitter lists from the “quality over quantity” perspective. In other words, it isn’t a popularity contest to get listed a lot, especially wen there are a lot of lists.

And get ready to take down your “English only” Twitter search filter. Soon enough, we’ll be able to translate tweets with no problem.

Facebook friends: Please stop spamming me

By Mandy

On October 26, 2009

In Facebook, Rants, Social Media

Whatever happened to Facebook friends actually being friends?

At one point not all that long ago, my Facebook friends were all people who I may not have considered “friends” in real life, but they at least knew me in some fashion. Whether we worked together at a past paper or went on the same school at some point, we had some binding life experience that brought us together on the social network. At the very least, we’ve met at least once – or maybe we follow one another on Twitter.

Lately, my Facebook friends are making me feel like just another number – even the ones who I consider real friends in the “real life network”.

A great deal of them are marketers – by profession, hobby or as a transitional job following a journalism layoff. Somehow, this means our Facebook friendship is little more than that of a spammer to spamee these days.

Every single day a Facebook friend of mine suggests I fan some client or employer of theirs. It used to be, I’d get fan suggestions about bands we both loved in school or groups based around inside jokes from “Arrested Development”.

Now, those same friends are asking me to fan companies I would have no obvious interest in (like Mommy sites), that are way out of my geographic area and aren’t even meant for people in my field (like political groups).

These former friends likely got their jobs based on their number of Facebook friends – and they spam each and every one of us with these stupid invites. I must have missed the marketing conference where they instructed everyone to sell their high school classmates, college friends and family members to anyone who shows them the money.

Social networking is supposed to be about connecting with old friends and making new ones. It can involve marketing products, but it takes individualized recommendations to be anything but spam.

I tolerate a lot from my Facebook friends – borderline-pornographic pregnancy photos, updates from parties I wasn’t invited to and constantly-shifting relationship statuses – but I won’t tolerate spam anymore. I’m going to start unfriending anyone who uses me to spam for their employers and clients. That’s not why I joined Facebook.

Marketing friends, I offer you an easy solution: Take ten minutes to set up friends groups in Facebook.

Go to Friends in the top menu of your Facebook home page and click on All Friends. On that page, click Create New List. Why don’t you be honest and name it the spam list? Look over your friends and select those to whom you actually want to market your product or business. Make sure your mom, your friend who now lives across the country and I are not on it.

Now when you send messages or invites, you can type in the name of that list and send it just to those people.

And finally, if you can’t make this decision about who to spam and who not to spam, maybe you shouldn’t be on Facebook at all. At the very least, you should do your real friends and family a favor and remove all of them from your lists. You aren’t a real friend, anyway.

WaPo, of all places, needs a lesson in transparency

By Mandy

On October 2, 2009

In Industry News & Notes, Social Media

Last Friday, the Washington Post internally released a social media policy for its staff that has had the news world buzzing. While it isn’t big news to release such a policy (many other papers have them too), for a paper with a reputation like that of the WaPo, you’d expect something a little less down on social networking. The policy applies to personal and professional accounts and has more than enough eyebrow-raising ‘dont’s’ that are sure to scare any staffer away from the social web. It already has.

To be fair, a great deal of the policy does focus on ethical issues most news staffs should have cleared up, such as remembering you’re always a journalist online and must follow the ethics of the profession even in social media and that anything online is public, even if you think it isn’t. The problem is, it also features a lot of warnings that seem to go against the very reason most journalists sign up in the first place.

Take the following gem:

Post journalists should not be involved in any social networks related to advocacy or a special interest regarding topics they cover, unless specifically permitted by a supervising editor for reporting and so long as other standards of transparency are maintained while doing any such reporting.

The very first thing I ever encourage reporters to do when they join Facebook or Twitter is to follow or friend the groups and individual sources they cover. They should be seeing what their sources are putting out there and use that medium to further interact as reporters. That’s the whole point – conversation, right? The policy does say they can do this with special permission and all that, but if WaPo reporters are anything like the nice people I work with every day, they’re going to drop all of their sourcing associations online immediately.

Another scary point of the policy is that it specifically says staff should tweet or otherwise communicate about internal newsroom issues or its company’s business decisions and they are forbidden from addressing any criticism of the organization. As Paid Content points out, that sort of policy would have prevented the mini-scandal over the WaPo’s paid schmooze events proposed by its publisher earlier this year – and it essentially makes transparency of the organization a punishable offense.

It’s transparency that is really what has been outlawed here – and that should concern journalists and consumers alike. In the age of social media, transparency is the new objectivity in a lot of ways (maybe eventually in entirety) – so why shut down the main avenue reporters have to show their work?

As the Posts’s tech writer Rob Pegoraro notes, reporters don’t just use Twitter to look cool, they use it as a public notebook to benefit readers and the organization at large. Without social media, he can’t easily answer a reader’s question in a public manner, provide links to related content or give readers a sense of who he is as a reporter in order to earn their trust.

I hope the WaPo eases up on this policy in the wake of the internal and external backlash. It’s really for the good of the entire industry following their lead that they sit down and consider how much they stand to lose from closing their doors to the outside world.

Category: Social Media Page 5 of 7

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