Ethics and editorial guidelines (I)

 

Over the past few years, news organizations such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and BBC have issued protocols for staff on networking sites like Facebook or Twitter. They have done so for personal blogs and web sites as well.

So we are talking about new editorial policies for social media. The reason why they did so would probably be controversies sparked over reporters’ tweets. Today, journalists stress the fact that their tweets do not represent their employers’ point of view, but theirs and only theirs.

Social media outlets – now and the future

By means of research for this blog, it is safe to say that social media is increasingly being adopted throughout the media industry and will continue to do so. 

When watching the news, the presenters now ask us to tweet our thoughts and opinions to their twitter accounts; when listening to the radio, we are invited to do the same and write comments on their facebook page ; newspapers now have their own social media correspondents like the Guardian’s ‘Networker,’ or in the ‘I’ newspaper, they have a section dedicated to readers tweets and a ‘blogosphere,’ where they have taken sections from some of their readers’ blogs. Furthermore, charities are using social media to spread their news fast and efficiently and to connect with the public and the interested community. Social media even makes news. The most recent news in the UK is that Twitter can be used by journalists in the courts.

Who knows about the future of social media? It is developing fast in the world of news and is constantly being used in different and new ways. Maybe, soon, these programmes will be in 3D, or we will start seeing holograms of people commenting live on TV news programmes through a new social media application… watch this space.

Social Media at Shelterbox

I am looking into the different media outlets that adopt social media and the ways that they do it. My last post briefly introduced how the Sports industry uses sites like Facebook and Twitter as important elements to spread news fast not only to those within it but to the fans and public too.

This post shall look at how more and more now charities are adopting social media to spread their news to the public, their sponsors and those who make donations.  There seems to be a new industry now opening up for fellow journalists within the charity sector. As well as PR jobs, there are job titles available now like ‘Head of News,’ which I saw advertised recently on the Cancer Macmillian website.

Shelterbox is a charity based in Cornwall. It provides disaster relief to countries where naturals disasters have happened, like extreme floods or earthquakes. Tommy Tonkins is the Communications Officer there and he talks about the huge impact that social media has made on the charity in terms of spreading the news and connecting more people to the organisation:

“Social media has enabled ShelterBox to engage and interact with our supporters in a way charities have traditionally struggled with. By fostering and developing a wider conversation with our ‘audience’ through different social media channels, we’ve been able to raise global awareness of our mission. Our use of social media has empowered our supporters and engendered a sense of community on a global scale.”

“In terms of spreading news, nothing can rival the immediacy of social media. Our Response Teams tweet live from disaster zones as the situation unfolds around them providing a real-time snap shot of what life is like on the ground. Social media has revolutionised the way we communicate and the way we consume information.”