Legal News
Associated Press Journalists Warned Over News Tweets (21 November 2011)
Date: 21/11/2011
The Associated Press news agency has reprimanded a small number of its journalists for releasing news on Twitter ahead of publishing it online. The news agency issued staff with the warning, following certain staff members sending tweets over the Associated Press journalists arrested during the Manhattan Occupy Wall Street camp. An email from the company’s executives followed, reminding staff of the company's social media policies.
The Associated Press’ social media policy informs staff that in the event of garnering a compelling, exclusive or urgent information, photo or video, they must first file the news to the wire before considering posting it on social media sites. Following the recent incident, the managing editor of Associated Press, Lou Ferrara, informed employees that their first duty should be to release news from the agency for which they work, not Twitter. The executive editor, Kathleen Carroll, followed this with a memo stating that in the event that the agency loses contact with a journalist, their focus is to ensure their safety and that oftentimes, talking about the matter while things remained uncertain can pose a danger to the journalist in question. She added that the agency’s policies existed “for good reasons".
Anthony de Rosa, a social media editor at the news agency, Reuters, believes that such policies must evolve. Caroline Kean, a law firm partner, believes that news organisation employees have an obligation to release news stories through their agencies rather than through Twitter, yet maintains that it is possible for a journalist to construct a personal tweet while safeguarding an agency’s story.
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