In today’s age of journalism, professional journalists share the social media space with tweeters, bloggers, YouTubers, and other ardent social media users. However, journalists have to be careful when using these platforms as there is much backlash over what journalists can say or include on their social media accounts both professional and personal. While many news organizations and media companies encourage reporters to use social media to gather information and create a “brand” for themselves, online comments, tweets or posts can put a reporter in the negative spotlight. Professional journalists must be mindful of what they post and how they post to avoid having their character or credibility diminished due to ethical issues.
Even though social media has opened doors for Journalists and their professions, Basyouni Ibrahim Hamada in his work entitled Social Media: A Turning Point into Global Journalism, Identity and Ethics, highlights that the new media platforms can become very problematic when it comes to being professional online. “There is no doubt that this new phenomenon has positively promoted the civil sphere; meanwhile, it comes at the expense of quality of journalism as it blurred the lines between professional and non-professional journalistic work.” Professionalism is indeed a huge part of ethical practices. Along with this fact, are other problems such as the lack of fact-checking and editorial proofreading, rumors and lies dissemination, the invasion of privacy, lack of logical coverage of topics, plagiarism and copyright infringement, no accountability present, and deception, manipulative practices, and undisclosed conflicts of interest.
These problems, if not paid keen attention to can implicate a journalist’s career in an extremely negative way. We have all seen this in recent events over the past few years. Incidents involving these ethical breaches range from journalists expressing partisan opinions, promoting political views, endorsing candidates and making offensive comments. With that in mind, the ethical challenge is to develop social media guidelines that allow reporters to explore the new digital media world, yet also draw reasonable limits on personal commentary.
Ryan Guerrero in his 2018 article entitled The Ethical Issues of Social Media in Journalism. Do journalists need social media guidelines? says establishing reasonable guidelines will allow journalists to have an independent voice. It will also ensure that they follow protocols and maintain professionalism in their jobs. Social media plays an imperative role in today’s journalism. Journalists and public relations personnel are almost constantly required to use social media and it is considered a valuable tool for communicating information to the public and vice versa.
The article also states that in a recent Cision Global Social Journalism Study, showing how journalists approach and use social media, between the 2012 and 2017 emphasis on the Cision Global Journalism Study, there was a 12 percent increase in the number of journalists that said they post content to social media platforms daily.
As journalists continue to create increasing amounts of augmenting content for social media, guidelines are starting to become implemented for reporters and social media influencers alike. Among the many organizations that implement social media guidelines include the Society of Professional Journalists. SPJ states that “the Society strongly encourages its leaders and members to regularly use social media to communicate, not only among them but with the broader journalism community.”
In April, The Atlantic fired columnist Kevin Williamson for past tweets he made on the issue of abortion. A few influential Twitter users learned that Williamson had previously commented on Twitter that woman who has abortions should be treated as murderers, and subject to the death penalty. These incidents have led to an eye-opening amount of questions about journalism ethics and social media use, regarding what the role of a journalist should be on social media. “I think it all depends on the platform you are, and how big your voice is,” says Yumi Wilson, associate professor of journalism at San Francisco State University. “Depending on the site, you want to approach your audience in different ways. Facebook should be kept personal, Instagram should contain a portion of both personal and business, and Twitter should highlight your opinions and thoughts in a safe and respectable manner.” As a journalist on social media, it’s critical to ponder whether you really want to say something to the world online. Journalists must take a step back and think to themselves, “Is this something I really want to share with the world?”, or “Will I be harming someone with these comments?”
In an article written by a professor of media and communications, Charlie Beckett entitled When Journalists go Online: Ethical Challenges for News and Social Media, a case study was examined which was conducted by Stephen Abell, Director of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC). The case study looks at ethicals issues that arise when journalists use social media and also give pointers on how to avoid them. “First, we have to consider the nature of the information, how private it is, how private the person regards it to be. Secondly, we need to think about the extent to which they willingly published it and put it out there to a wide audience. These things are not absolute…sometimes things are clearly in the public domain but it would still be intrusive to refer to them.” Stated Abell in the article.
A professional journalist must also consider the policies of the media house with which he/she works, think about the possible reactions he/she would receive after the post is made, contemplate the on whether one should share such an opinion or not. The truth is, a journalist is known to relate the facts and is expected to do only that, which explains why the journalists will get a backlash for his/her commentary on a particular topic of interest. It is the job description that precedes the person.
As journalists, we are in the position to have an influence on others, a role that must be treated carefully and professionally. One must find the perfect balance between commentary and opinion on social media. One must also be mindful of the various ethical issues that will arise as a journalist using social media. It is important that the journalist is aware that he/she is not as the ordinary unprofessional and that they have an image and standard to uphold as the average man looks to them for the facts. Anything a journalist say or do in the public’s eyes is held as true or valid due to the role of the profession. One must be reminded that their responsibility and obligation is to ensure that the people have access to important, accurate and truthful information. This is to be applied both on and off-air or paper which includes social media and other new media publications.
Written byKatrich Walker
Raquel McKenzie
See the links below for further references:
https://www.intechopen.com/books/social-media-and-journalism-trends-connections-implications/social-media-a-turning-point-into-global-journalism-identity-and-ethics
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