Washington Post’s new guidelines for social media
The Washington Post unleashed a new set of guidelines for employees in regards to social media, including using it for investigations. Interesting tidbits I highlighted in red. Here is the full text:
The following are effective immediately:
Newsroom Guidelines for Use of Facebook, Twitter and Other Online Social Networks
Social networks are communications media, and a part of our everyday lives. They can be valuable tools in gathering and disseminating news and information. They also create some potential hazards we need to recognize. When using social networking tools for reporting or for our personal lives, we must remember that Washington Post journalists are always Washington Post journalists. The following guidelines apply to all Post journalists, without limitation to the subject matter of their assignments.
Using Social Networking Tools for Reporting
When using social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, My Space or Twitter for reporting, we must protect our professional integrity. Washington Post journalists should identify themselves as such. We must be accurate in our reporting and transparent about our intentions when participating. We must be concise yet clear when describing who we are and what information we seek.
When using these networks, nothing we do must call into question the impartiality of our news judgment. We never abandon the guidelines that govern the separation of news from opinion, the importance of fact and objectivity, the appropriate use of language and tone, and other hallmarks of our brand of journalism.
Our online data trails reflect on our professional reputations and those of The Washington Post. Be sure that your pattern of use does not suggest, for example, that you are interested only in people with one particular view of a topic or issue.
Using Social Networking Tools for Personal Reasons
All Washington Post journalists relinquish some of the personal privileges of private citizens. Post journalists must recognize that any content associated with them in an online social network is, for practical purposes, the equivalent of what appears beneath their bylines in the newspaper or on our website.
What you do on social networks should be presumed to be publicly available to anyone, even if you have created a private account. It is possible to use privacy controls online to limit access to sensitive information. But such controls are only a deterrent, not an absolute insulator. Reality is simple: If you don’t want something to be found online, don’t put it there.
Post journalists must refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything—including photographs or video—that could be perceived as reflecting political, racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism that could be used to tarnish our journalistic credibility. This same caution should be used when joining, following or friending any person or organization online. Post journalists should not be involved in any social networks related to advocacy or a special interest regarding topics they cover, unless specifically permitted by a supervising editor for reporting and so long as other standards of transparency are maintained while doing any such reporting.
Post journalists should not accept or place tokens, badges or virtual gifts from political or partisan causes on pages or sites, and should monitor information posted on your own personal profile sites by those with whom you are associated online for appropriateness.
Personal pages online are no place for the discussion of internal newsroom issues such as sourcing, reporting of stories, decisions to publish or not to publish, personnel matters and untoward personal or professional matters involving our colleagues. The same is true for opinions or information regarding any business activities of The Washington Post Company. Such pages and sites also should not be used to criticize competitors or those who take issue with our journalism or our journalists.If you have questions about any of these matters, please check with your supervisor or a senior editor.
NOTE: These guidelines apply to individual accounts on online social networks, when used for reporting and for personal use. Separate guidelines will follow regarding other aspects of Post journalism online.
Some very interesting points in here. A lot of people are calling this overbearing and draconian, but it seems pretty sensible to me. At the very least, it’s a start. Policy can always be adjusted (although not always easily). The bit about giving up the ‘personal privileges of private citizens’ is worded kinda poorly, but you can’t get around the fact that it is true. Since getting into the realm of journalism, I have changed my Web and social media habits. The result? I’m not one of the people who needs to make everything private and hide my online activity. I embrace them and share them.
Citizen Reporting: America and China
I just want to preface by saying I hate the term ‘citizen journalism’ as it cheapens the weak profession I just spent several years getting a college education in.
Two great examples of citizen reporting in action this past week. There has been some great footage out of Pittsburgh from the G-20 Summit protests. ‘The Internet’ has allowed for a ridiculous amount of information to travel fast, but it has really been kicked up in the last two or three years courtesy of Youtube, Facebook and Twitter, especially when it comes to social activism.
And out of China: An apparent gas main explosion in Beijing was covered by local folks posting pictures on Twitpic.
China’s response? Ban Twitpic.
Two more great examples of on-the-scene coverage from ordinary people, and two completely responses.
First teaching lab day: SUCCESS
I am pleased to report that my first day as a teaching assistant was a success. For those who are unaware, I am co-teaching a multimedia journalism class at Lewis University. Every Thursday is a “lab” day, where I have control over what goes on. Today was the introduction of one of the most fundamental aspects of digital journalism: blogging.
I introduced the students to WordPress, one of the most widely used blogging platforms on the web (just today there was a post about the New York Times and their WP workflow). I walked the students through registering, activating, the basics of creating and editing posts, what categories and tags are, changing themes and widgets and the important of link journalism. It was a blast, and I was relieved to the nth degree that everyone seemed to have caught on.
Next Thursday, we are going to start on podcasts. I’ll be teaching them in Garage Band, since all the computers they are working on have it installed. I’m not much of a podcaster my self, so I hope I do a decent job of passing on the theories behind it.
I’ve set up a class blog on WordPress, where I share relevant links to the field. It’s actually somewhat similar to THIS blog, so don’t be surprised if you see some cross-posting. Check it out here.
Learning skills WITHOUT waterwings
My journalism career began almost two years ago to the day when I sat down in ‘Introduction to Journalism‘ at Lewis University. The mentality in most of my classes since then have very much been “It is time to learn to swim. Here is the pool. Good luck.”
Is it effective? I don’t know; it worked for me, but I don’t think I would teach a class that way. Nevertheless, that is how I learned and it worked for me. I adopted the same mantra when I undertook the task of rebuilding the Lewis Flyer website. How hard could it be?
I started working in the new site in May using the Wordpress content management system. HTML and CSS I picked up quickly enough, thanks to the tutorials at HTMLDog. The core essence of Wordpress is PHP, which means I had to sort that out too. Thank God it wasn’t too hard to grasp; then again, I wasn’t doing anything OVERLY complicated.
It hasn’t been easy. I am sure there are basic things that, since I taught myself, I am missing out on. But I can honestly say that I feel comfortable with editing HTML, customizing CSS and playing around with PHP. During the building stages of the new Flyer, a routine sight in my bedroom would be Dreamweaver open on one monitor with a php page, Notepad++ open on my second monitor with CSS and my laptop propped in my lap with a few different cheatsheets open.
Unfortunately, not everything can be a pool experience. It slowly became clear that one talent that I could NOT easily pick up on without water wings is web design. Knowing the various languages is one things; being able to tie them together into one cohesive project was something entirely different.
I tried and I tried, oh how I tried!, but I just could not get the website looking professional enough to meet my high standards.
After an obscene amount of time, I finally surrendered. I bit the bullet and paid for the Gazette Edition theme. It was only after I forked over money did I realize that this is an extremely common theme in the world of Wordpress-powered college publication websites, but oh well. It looks damn good.
After setting up the new theme, I felt a renewed sense of optimism and dedication. With a solid framework to build upon, I spent three nights straight staying up until 2 in the morning to pound out custom changes to make the new Lewis Flyer look like…the new Lewis Flyer. I think I have learned more about CSS in the last week than I have in the last three months. It has been a great educational experience, but it just goes to prove that you can’t always master something on your own.
I was hesitant to use someone else’s template, as it felt like a failure on my part. The more I worked on it, though, the more my fears were eased. Here is the original sketch I did for the website.
Pretty, right? There was just too much CSS boxing and content editing for me to effectively get it done. I was working within a timeframe (we want to launch in the next week or two) and while I’m sure eventually I could get it, there just wasn’t time. I can’t show you how the website looks like just yet, but soon. Very very soon!
Personal branding and YOU (part 1)
A very popular train of thought in recent years is that, despite the news industry going through a ‘rough patch,’ the internet has spurred the growth of individual identities. The border between ‘professional’ and ‘personal’ has been blurred in recent years due to the advent of social media like Facebook and Twitter. No longer are journalists communicating with us in their duly appointed mediums (a three minute segment on the news, a daily column). No, now they have the potential to reach us at any time. There is a very convenient site, Media On Twitter, that provides a list of major media personalities on Twitter.
CNN's Rick Sanchez isn't afraid to get freaky.
I can understand why not everyone would be as gung-ho about personal branding as I might be. DigiDave’s blog has this to say on the matter
The response I hear from reporters is:
- I don’t want to be a brand.
- I am shy.
- Isn’t branding just selling out? “Damn the man, save The Empire”
Fair points, but what exactly makes someone a personal brand? Again, we turn to DigiDave:
- Be findable online
- Show your personality, whatever that is
- Just be yourself
Why is personal branding so important?
It builds your reputation. It puts your work at their fingertips. It helps you network with others in your profession.
For years we have been taught to hide our online personas, that companies will routinely scour the internet to discover your online presence. I think the exact opposite is true for journalism, where your career is made around making yourself available online. A Google search for ‘Brandon Wall journalism‘ reveals nothing but links to my personal brand on the first page of results, including my online resume. The second page is 70 percent me as well.
How do you build a personal brand?
For this, we turn to JobsPage and a post on how to build your brand.
- Be authentic
- Be exceptional
- Be valuable
- Be consistent
- Share
The first four are common sense, and come with any prior journalism training. ‘Sharing’ is of special note. This entire blog is built around sharing: sharing posts and articles I find on digital journalism and sharing my thoughts. A recent web site that is built around journalists sharing with other journalists is Publish2. Take a look at the right side of this page; see my list of shared articles? I use Publish2 as a sort of temporary bookmarking system for content that I can draw a future blog post from in addition to sharing things that aren’t worthy of a blog post of their own.
On a practical level, the first step to building your personal brand is to start a blog to serve as your own home base on the internet. Begin generating content: post portfolio pieces you’ve written, post links to other articles and write some commentary, and create unique content. Find blogs in your field and begin posting comments. Be sure to post a link back to your blog, but not in a way that would be considered spam or degrading to the conversation. It’s probably safe to say that at least a few of you found this blog/post through a link I’ve scattered somewhere on the internet.
This concludes part 1 on personal branding. I’ll be refining my thoughts, exploring some more, and hopefully honing in on material I can use for teaching my class this fall. I’ll leave you with this YouTube video that personifies the news anchors on WGN.
I am now a professor of multimedia journalism
How ironic that just a few weeks after the launch of my blog about multimedia journalism, I am asked to co-teach a class called “Multimedia Journalism” at Lewis University. Yes, I am still in college, but I guess I know enough! I’ll be focusing on the ‘multimedia’ aspect while one of the well-respected professors of the Lewis University program teaches the ‘journalism’ side of things.
I am ridiculously excited about this opportunity. I’m hot off the heels of two web-related internships this summer, and I usually spend (at least) an hour or two keeping up with social media related news. I have a Google Document up and running of all the random notes and jibberish I come across that might be good. Here are some basic concepts I am hoping to review:
- Audio editing
- Podcasting and audio slideshows
- Photo and video editing
- Slideshows and 2 minute long videos
- Engaging your audience
- Using Twitter, Facebook, article commenting to build your community.
- RSS feeds
- SEO
- Other random things
- Google Maps
- Timelines
I intentionally left out things like Flash and heavier concepts so as not to overwhelm students. I don’t know if I found this philosophy somewhere or if I just randomly came up with it, but I hope this to be a guiding principle of the class: “You are not a coder. You are not a designer. You are not a Flash animator. You are a digital journalist.” Knowing tools like Flash or PHP can definitely help in giving a leg-up in the job market, but that is not the goal of the class and I want to make it clear.
Am I missing any important concepts? What other nifty tools should I be putting in their multimedia toolbox?
Have fun, stay in trouble.
I think I have found my new rallying cry for journalists.
Have fun and stay in trouble.
It highlights two things that have become fundamental tenants of journalism. One, have fun. It’s no secret that the current state of professional journalism is….less than ideal. Okay, that’s an understatement. It is probably one of the worst industries to be getting into. Nevermind the recession, that’s child’s play compared to our industry as a whole. it seems that every month, a new corporation is filing for bankruptcy. It’s easy to get depressed and carry a chip on your shoulder…at this point it’s part of the standard uniform.
All that is missing is a bitter chip on his shoulder and a perpetual raincloud over his head.
Journalism is very much a labor of love. Those that are in the field and are not passionate will not be around long. So lighten up, journalists. It sucks, but we need to have a sense of humor about us before we become hollowed husks of a human.
Two, stay in trouble. Isn’t that just great? It really defines what journalism is all about. One of the biggest failures of modem journalism is the lack of real hard-hitting investigations. Sure, it happens. Big stories like Blago corruption, the Burr Oak Cemetery and other squeamish things like that will always be gleefully busted open. But on the day to day level of basic journalism, I don’t think we are pushing and digging as hard as we maybe should be.
We should constantly be asking questions that others would hesitate to ask. We must constantly be taking it to the next level, pushing just a little bit harder, to tell the whole story. A wise man once told me, “If your articles are pissing people off, you are probably doing your job.” Not a universal truth, but probably a good indicator of your job performance, depending on what you cover.
Do newspapers deserve to survive?
An excellent post on Mashable from Vadim Lavrusik today listed the 12 things newspapers should do to survive. Here’s a quick list of the 12 points, and some of my own commentary.
- Putting web first and reporting from multiple platforms
Continuing with the concept of removing ‘print’ from ‘print journalism,’ it is foolish for colleges and universities to be offering both a ‘print’ and ‘multimedia’ journalism. Clearly there is no future in an education that revolves solely around print writing. Similarly, multimedia journalism is not an encompassing enough concept. I think in the years to come we will see j-schools shifting to merge programs into one ‘Digital Journalism’ program.
- Go niche
Going niche is a great idea. How can you be all-encompassing when there are web sites devoted to single topics that will provide better coverage? I wish I have the link handy but I read a post a few weeks ago that essentially said the future of major news outlets will be to aggregate nice websites in addition to providing local content. The concept sounds appealing, and I’ve been pondering about making a prototype for it come December when I am graduated and unemployed.
- Offer unique content in print
Unique content in print speaks to the evolving nature of what a newspaper is and is not. They are no longer timely, so telling the news is not enough. I have always been a huge fan of letters to the editor and while obviously you cannot have an entire publication of write-ins, I think community involvement might begin to play a larger role in print media.
- Journalists as curators and contextualizers
- Real-time reporting integration
- Internal culture: Startup vs. corporate
Restructuring newspapers is a must. I’ve long been a proponent of the complete death of the current print industry, so that a new one built around 21st century concepts can emerge. One of the biggest reasons I think a total collapse approach is necessary to save print media is BECAUSE of the structure. I don’t think that an industry so rooted in the old way of things, so slow to adapt to changing technologies, is going to be able to shift their culture.
- Encourage innovation
- Charging for quotes is not the answer
- Investing in mobile: E-Readers or smartphones?
- Communicating with readers
- Building community
- To pay wall or not to pay wall – that is the question
The real problem is that people have NEVER paid for newspaper articles. In the golden days of the industry, newspapers were available for as cheap as they were as a result of advertising revenue and classifieds. When those sources dried up, so did the industry. It’s definitely worth exploring, and Murdoch’s plans are really going to accelerate the discussion, but I don’t think it is a MAJOR source of revenue in the long run.
Here is what it comes down to. The newspaper industry is in dire shape (duh). They long relied on advertising and classifieds to generate money, and those sources have dried up for many reasons, one of which being the corporate overlords who have come to control the industry were unwilling or unable to adopt to the advent of the Internet. Will they be able to pull themselves out of this tailspin?
Sure they will. If there is one thing corporate overlords love, it is making money. One way or another, they will find a way to make money out of the industry. We may end up with a bastardized version of news, if you can believe it. If you thought the merging of entertainment and news divisions was bad, just wait. You ain’t seen nothing yet! Is this inevitable?
Hell. No.
The 12 steps outlined at the beginning of this post very well would help newspapers to survive, but that is not something I want to happen. Absolutely not, and exactly for the reasons I just listed. I am a firm believer in the school of thought that as long as corporate greed is the governing force, we will forever be doomed to deal with corporate hacks and shallow news. One of my favorite moments in the topic is when John Steward went on CNN’s Crossfire and literally calls them out on their failures as the purveyors of the truth.
Nothing short of bankruptcies, an industry clear cutting, mass layoffs by the millions and a heartbreaking death can save newspapers. Get the Rupert Murdochs, the Ted Turners, out of the picture, and let room for enterprising startups to create the true future of newspapers.
The 12 points made in Lavrusik’s piece read like the framework for the future of newspapers, but the core issue is that the current industry can’t survive in order for it to flourish where it counts: accurate and reliable truthtelling.
More speculation that the death of Flash is coming
Okay, that might be a little bit sensational. Maybe even a LOT sensational. Another day, another article about Flash’s diminishing importance. This one comes from Advertising Age and focuses around the upcoming mass implementation of HTML 5.
HTML 5, the next major revision to the 4.01 standard, is geared specifically to support rich web applications (e.g. Google Docs) built with JavaScript. And open video platforms, such as Ogg Theora, will enable content creators to embed video and audio files on the web just like HTML text or images today. Moreover, you’ll be able to easily edit, crop, tag and remix those same videos. And none of this will require plug-ins from Adobe (Flash), Microsoft (Silverlight) or Sun (JavaFX).
They provide links to some truly amazing examples of what HTML 5 can do.
- Here are some cool particles following your mouse around. Each particle represents a tweet about HTML 5.
- A canvas for drawing.
- Walking around a maze holding…flowers?
- Video players!
All of this without the need for browser plugins!
If you have Google’s web browser Chrome installed, check out these 50 experiments using HTML 5.
Concepts, Not Components
At what point will journalism schools (j-schools for those in the know) refocus their multimedia education from learning tools to learning theories?
Take, for example, the deviant that is Adobe Flash. Many a multimedia journalists students have had classes on the program, and why? “It’s the next big thing!” “Every journalist is going to need to know how to use it!”
Yeah, sure. Just give me a passing grade at the end of the semester. One of my favorite blogs (10,000 words) outlines three reasons why journalists shouldn’t use flash:
- Flash projects take a long time to create
- Many projects don’t need to be animated
- Most journalists are not designers
There is of course another important reason, that being Flash projects do not exactly lend themselves well to SEO optimization (to my knowledge).
In a business that has evolved to the point where timing is everything and beating your competition to a story can make or break you, there are very few major stories that lend themselves well to a Flash format. The Flash project will only be used for as long as the story is relevant, which is very rarely longer than a few weeks, if that.
This isn’t an anti-Flash rambling, but I had to make a point. J-schools seem to have a sick preoccupation with teaching components, not concepts. Professors are just as doe-eyed as the more enthusiastic students (maybe sometimes more so) over the amazing tools and technologies that are quickly making themselves available. There is just one problem with teaching us how to use these tools.
Multimedia journalists (a term that is quickly becoming redundant as the separation between ‘print’ and ‘multimedia’ journalists is rapidly deteriorating) are a community of dedicated individuals who are aware of the precise our industry is currently perched upon. I like to think that we are a hardy breed that is sticking together and care for our own.At this point it has already become clear that if there is a tool multimedia journalists need, a service will be popping up sooner or later to provide it, quick and easy, without having to learn the nitty gritty underside of scripting and coding.
One of the ‘Many Great Things’ I was told Flash could do is make timelines. Why would I go through the long process of learning specific scripts, etc. to make an amateurish looking timeline in Flash when I could jet over to timetoast.com and throw together a piece in just a few minutes? Just look- this took all of 4 minutes to make:
Bite my tongue I can’t figure out how to embed this timeline. Insert a large, sheepish grin on my face now.
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Speaking of embedding content, one of the core tools of multimedia journalism (and just so happens to be dangerously underutilized) is Google Maps. There is no reason why any reputable news organization should not use a Google map (when applicable, obviously) to highlight locations in a story. Hell, it should be an automated process in everybody’s CMS: Input an address, an address location, and an address description, and voila! instant Google map.
When the Burr Oak Cemetery scandal broke in south suburban Chicago, very few people in Chicago had any idea where exactly Burr Oak was, let alone people from a national audience. I was providing web coverage for the story for WGN, and one of the first things I did was create an embeddable map showing where the cemetery was located. Follow this link and scroll down a bit to see it in action.
Spitting out a Google map is quick and easy, something I assume even a technophobe can do. Look; I just made one while typing this sentence!
There are countless other services available to journalists to speed up their job; Flickr photo galleries. Powerpoint-esque slideshows. Podcasts. Audio-guided slideshows. Screencasts. Twitter. There is any number of multimedia formats and tools available to the budding journalist, but when is the right time to use them? This should be a fundamental tenant of multimedia journalism education. It should be introduced on the very first day of ‘Intro to Multimedia Journalism’ (or equivalent classes) and reinforced until graduation.
The concepts behind the tools, when to use them and why, are just as important (if not more so) than the formats themselves. I’m rather fond of saying that the impact Twitter has had on how we communicate will live on long past Twitter. The same is true for Flash, or Timetoast or Google Maps (maybe). Knowing when to use a tool, and the critical thinking process that goes into deciding what is used when.
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I hope I did not offend any professional Flashers with my anti-Flash tirade. To make up for it, I encourage all of you to go see CNN’s excellent piece of interactive journalism, their Obama Report Card.