Monday, June 29, 2009
Editorial Ethics for Twitter Journalists
Via Media Helping Media:
Editorial ethics of balance, impartiality, fairness, objectivity and accuracy are at the heart of all good journalism.
Without these values, some so-called journalists will be pumping out PR and propaganda.
But with so many journalists in traditional media now invading the social networking space and using tools such as Twitter to both find stories and to spread stories, how do editorial ethics stand up in this fast-paced, instant-information world?
The great thing about Twitter is the speed of delivery and publication. It was set up so that people could answer the question “What are you doing?” in a 140 character text message, sent from either a mobile device or a computer.
It’s instant and it is focused. The message is not drowned in unnecessary words. People using Twitter for sending news have to be disciplined. It’s ideal for news headlines. Short, sharp and to the point.
The information atmosphere is now thick with tweets with a richness of subject variety that is often leaving the mainstream media behind.
Some are fairly basic (although no less important for those sending and receiving) such as, “I have had a bad day” and “taking the dog for a walk”, but others, as we have seen in the recent tweeting around the situation in Iran #iranelections, have been stunning in their delivery of information that may not otherwise have been circulated.
Read the full article.
