CorpComms Magazine

Reuters, the global newswire service, has issued its social media policy, advising journalists not to break news stories on sites like Twitter and to avoid bias when using digital media for personal and professional purposes.

Whilst encouraging journalists to engage with new media tools both for newsgathering and to expand their public following, the guidelines entreat them not to 'scoop the wire' but always to release 'hard news content' through Reuters before publishing it on microblogs like Twitter.

The newswire service also counsels its representatives to consider their 'online footprint'. Even if a journalist doesn't explicitly state their political affiliations, a critic can build up a fairly comprehensive picture of their views and potentially identify their sources 'by analysing your links, those that you follow, your friends, blogroll and endless other indicators', the guidelines state.

Reuters notes that 'whether we think it fair or not' the organisation's reputation can now hinge on opinions published by its reporters on media over which it has no editorial control. It advises employees to seek manager approval before creating a social media profile and to create a separate profile for social networking from that used for news-gathering and professional contact-building. But ultimately it acknowledges that 'the distinction between the private and the professional has largely broken down online and you should assume that your professional and personal social media activity will be treated as one'.

share me: del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Tweet