Blog
11.07
AP Creates New Social Media Guidelines for Journalists
The sentinels of standards - the Associated Press - figured this Twitter thing was catching on, so it was time to chime in with the official AP social media guidelines for journalists everywhere.
Anyone in PR Flackdom follow a beloved journo that writes in his or her profile, "RTs are not an endorsement" or "Opinions are my own"? What they are really saying is, "I'm a human being, not a spambot, you twits." That wasn't clear enough for AP, so we have this:
RETWEETING
Retweets, like tweets, should not be written in a way that looks like you’re expressing a personal opinion on the issues of the day. A retweet with no comment of your own can easily be seen as a sign of approval of what you’re relaying. For instance:
RT @jonescampaign smith’s policies would destroy our schools
RT @dailyeuropean at last, a euro plan that works bit.ly/xxxxx.
These kinds of unadorned retweets must be avoided.
However, we can judiciously retweet opinionated material if we make clear we’re simply reporting it, much as we would quote it in a story. Colons and quote marks help make the distinction:
RT Jones campaign now denouncing smith on education: @jonescampaign smith’s policies would destroy our schools
RT big European paper praises euro plan: @dailyeuropean “at last, a euro plan that works” bit.ly/xxxxx.
These cautions apply even if you say on your Twitter profile that retweets do not constitute endorsements.
I get it. It's all about an appearance of bias, or in other words, what national news broadcast outlets have forgotten. Conflicts of interest can be a persnickety thing on Twitter, but face it, there's a lot of news to be read in 140 characters.
And now, thanks to AP, retweeting said news should be a little more difficult. Will it be more clear? Will it become the "standard"? And does AP realize following and retweeting someone without an opinion is about as uncommon as any Herman Cain joke starting with the word "sausage."
One of the comments found retweeted quite a bit was from Andy Carvin of NPR. He says
AP retweet guidelines also encourage “rt isn’t an endorsement” in your Twitter bio. Me: An homage to lawyers. Again, I’ll pass.
And follows that with this:
Anyone who follows you for a short period of time will figure out your tweet style. No need to assume they’re clueless. #AP #RT
Social media is far from objective, so I'll consider this a help in the right direction. Perhaps, Twitter would like to come out with "A Dummies' Guide to Reading Tweets: An attempt to define cynicism." I think it would be a best-seller.
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