As social networking becomes an ever-increasingly key component in driving traffic to news sites, news organizations are working to set social media policies for their organization practices, and even for their reporters. To date, policies vary greatly and have produced a variety of dialogue. The links here should help you understand a bit what news organizations are doing with these policies and show you what some of the debate centers around.
It basically boils down to asking the question, “How should reporters act online?” While many scholstic publications are online and have verbal policies in place, we have yet to find a written policy in practice from high school. If you have one, comment after the links and let us know about it.
Links to check out:
Journalists’ Use of Social Media – Mindy McAdams
Poynter, Newsrooms Develop Social Networking Policies for Journalists on Facebook, Myspace, Twitter – Kelly McBride
News Organizaitons Implement New Social Media Ethics Policies – Will Sullivan
Newspaper Social Media Policies Out of Touch – JD Lasica
How should a social media policy for scholastic media read? What does yours say? What does it not say?
Written By: Aaron Manfull