Broadcast Journalists & Social Media Guidelines
Should journalists be held to strict standards regarding their social media presence?
Key Points:
Social media enables civilians to demonstrate their political biases
Should broadcast journalists be held to strict standards in order to main neutrality?
5 questions to consider before posting from the New York Times
Journalists should have the freedom to be in charge of their own platforms, but must be diligent to what they post, repost & like
The landscape of social media is constantly changing. While typically used to showcase perfectly captured moments to share with friends and family, brands and businesses are now becoming more actively interested and involved with their audiences. At its core, social media is utilized to stay connected and updated. Now it can be utilized as a personal tool to closely engage with the customer/consumer. Brands are able to get direct feedback and create buzz through social media platforms. The same can be applied to broadcast journalism as social media can serve as an asset. Rather than being the ‘gatekeepers’ of information, newsrooms can now consult or rely on the input and reporting from the public via social media platforms such as Twitter. However, this leads to a lot of grey area for journalists and their social media standards.
Diplomacy and neutrality should always be the goal of a journalist, but social media blurs those lines as platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are used as an outlet for individual opinions. Journalists must be diligent to what they post as their words become instantly linked to their organization. Therefore, I personally support the idea of journalists having a professional social media account separate from their personal. There are many benefits to having the two platforms separated. For example, the personal life and opinions of a journalist can be kept more privately. However, journalists must always maintain a degree of professionalism while actively working under an organization because as pointed out by the New York Times, nothing is truly private as anything ‘liked’ can be publicly found. Therefore, reporters must be diligent in not only what they are posting, but also liking. In 2017, the New York Times executive editor collaborated with colleagues to create a set of basic guidelines of social media protocols for their reporters to follow.
Here are some key questions the Times poses for reporters to consider before posting:
1. Would you express similar views in an article on The Times’s platforms?
2. Would someone who reads your post have grounds for believing that you are biased on a particular issue?
3. If readers see your post and notice that you’re a Times journalist, would that affect their view of The Times’s news coverage as fair and impartial?
4. Could your post hamper your colleagues’ ability to effectively do their jobs?
5. If someone were to look at your entire social media feed, including links and retweets, would they have doubts about your ability to cover news events in a fair and impartial way?
- The New York Times (2017, updated Nov. 3 2020)
Ultimately, New York Times reporters are given the freedom to run their own platforms without intense, strict guidelines. They are encouraged to use their own unique voices while telling their stories, however, there is an expectation to maintain professionalism and cohesiveness as a team while representing the Times through their social media.
“We want our journalists to feel that they can use social media to experiment with voice, framing and reporting styles — particularly when such experiments lead to new types of storytelling on The Times’s platforms.”
While granted these liberties, The Times cautions their reporters and editors on their overall presence by even strongly discouraging the posting of customer service complaints or reviews on their social media as anything and everything can be traced back to the Times. Clearly, there are several grey areas and boundaries that test today’s broadcast journalists and their credibility. I personally believe the Times has taken on a positive stance on social media and the guidelines they set for their reporters and editors. I hope they can serve as a general standard for broadcast journalists in the field today.
What do you think? Should journalists have strict guidelines to their social media account(s)?
Source:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/reader-center/social-media-guidelines.html