Best Practice Of Social Media

10 Best Practices for Social Media

Helpful guidelines for news organizations
By James HoHmann and tHe
2010-11 asne etHics and values committee
may 2011

Executive Summary
Guidelines
Appendix: Social Media Policies

3
4
17

BloomBerg

17

the denver Post

19

orlando sentinel

25

st. louis Post-disPatch

27

the roanoke times/roanoke.com

28

the Wall streetJournal, neWsWire and marketWatch

32

sourcemedia grouP (cedar raPids, ia)

33

the rockford register star

36

los angeles times

38

the neW York times

40

guardian (u.k.)

41

reuters

42

the Washington Post

44

charlotte oBserver

46

the Journal gazette (fort WaYne, ind.)

46

the manhattan (kan.) mercurY

46

the neWs & record (greensBoro, n.c.)46

freedom communications, inc.

47

1 0 BEST PRACTICES FOR SOCIAL MEDIA

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t His PaPer Was researcHed and Written By James HoHmann of Politico for tHe
2010-11 asne etHics and values committee, Working WitH co-cHairs Pam fine,
knigHt cHair in neWs, leadersHiP and community, tHe university of kansas
scHool of Journalism and mass communication; JoHn Harris, editor-in-cHief,Politico; and committee memBer frank BarroWs, Queens university of cHarlotte,
cHarlotte, n.c.

Best practice guidelines for editors
crafting social media policies
m arcH 2011

Executive summary –
Social media platforms continue to emerge as essential newsgathering tools. These mediums offer exciting opportunities for
reporters to collect information and for news organizations to expand thereach of their content, but they also carry challenges
and risks. Putting in place overly draconian rules discourages creativity and innovation, but allowing an uncontrolled free-forall opens the floodgates to problems and leaves news organizations responsible for irresponsible employees.
We offer these guidelines as a framework to help editors form their own policies.
We reviewed publiclyavailable social media policies for mainstream news organizations and several others sent to us by ASNE
members. An appendix at the end of this report includes the full text of what was collected. We identified 10 best-practice
themes at the heart of the best policies.
Each theme gets its own page here, with a brief explanation of why it’s included, a “teachable moment,” and excerpts from
socialmedia guidelines released by news organizations that have been leading the way.
Here are the 10 key takeaways:
1. Traditional ethics rules still apply online.
2. Assume everything you write online will become public.
3. Use social media to engage with readers, but professionally.
4. Break news on your website, not on Twitter.
5. Beware of perceptions.
6. Independently authenticate anythingfound on a social networking site.
7. Always identify yourself as a journalist.
8. Social networks are tools not toys.
9. Be transparent and admit when you’re wrong online.
10. Keep internal deliberations confidential.

1 0 BEST PRACTICES FOR SOCIAL MEDIA

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Traditional ethics rules still apply.
Reporters should act the same way online as they would in person. They shouldn’t say anythingthey wouldn’t want to see on
the front page of their newspaper, and they shouldn’t post anything that would embarrass them personally or professionally or
their organization. This seems like common sense, but to many journalists it’s not obvious.
There’s no reason that traditional ethics guidelines should go out the window. That is first and foremost the message that should
come across insocial media guidelines. John Robinson, the editor of The Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record, responded to
an email about his social media guidelines this way: “We have a code of ethics and professionalism that covers our behavior,
period. That said I’ve told my staff that my social media policy is this: Don’t be stupid.” He said it works for them.

Teachable moment:
Hiroko Tabuchi, a New York...