Ethics 2.0

Canadian Association of Journalists conference 2010, Montreal

Ethics 2.0: The Rights, Wrongs and Maybes of Social Media

Discussion group on social media ethics lead by Kirk LaPointe, managing editor at the Vancouver Sun, and Ivor Shapiro, associate professor of journalism at Ryerson University.

Draft copy of the Twitter ethics guidelines

To retweet or not to retweet. To what extent do journalists need to verify the information first? Argument given for retweeting is that journalists need to stay relevant, to show they are in the loop and trying to find out more. The argument against is that they can destroy their credibility by tweeting rumors that later prove to be untrue. And here's the question, is the threshold lower for retweeting something compared to posting something to a blog or a news website?

I think most retweets will have to be dealt with on a case by case basis (who did the tweet come from, what do you know about them, are they likely to know this?) but attribution is, as always, key. Write “looking into . . .” “unconfirmed reports” “. . . is reporting.” Include links wherever possible. As LaPointe says, the danger is in sounding more authoritative than you are. We need to get used to saying, we don't know yet.

The other challenge is opinion. Studies show opinions are what get retweeted, but traditionally reporters try not to state their opinions in public for fear of appearing biased. An easy way to avoid this, is to simply broadcast links to your own articles and other interesting articles you find, but that makes for a boring Twitter feed. Twitter followers want to know the person behind the account. LaPointe says he tells reporters at the Vancouver Sun to write one observational tweet for every broadcast tweet, but admits there is a lot of gray area between opinion and observation. I guess that's just something to watch out for and muddle through.

On the other hand, the great thing about Twitter is the way it can open the whole process of researching and writing an article to the public. Before Twitter, many tips would come from the public, but then journalists would retreat into the newsroom to research and write before publishing back into the public realm. Now, journalists can let those members of the public who are really interested in the stories they cover help shape them. A quick tweet in the morning to let followers know (in general terms) what a reporter is working on could yield good source suggestions, or suggestions of other questions to ask or directions to go in. That just makes better journalism.

During the past school year, I've mostly used Twitter to research what people at the local post-secondary institutions are talking about, but it's also been great for helping me get to know student leaders. I'm probably guilty of too much broadcast tweeting in my Twitter feed, and opening up the process of writing to get more input on developing stories is one area I'd like to do more of. Ask me how it goes.

Blog post by Elise Stolte,
estolte@thejournal.canwest.com
or follow me on Twitter @estolte