News Organizations Work to Set Social Media Policies

Social media logos

As social networking becomes an ever-increasingly key component in driving traffic to news sites, news organizations are working to set social media policies for their organization practices, and even for their reporters. To date, policies vary greatly and have produced a variety of dialogue. The links here should help you understand a bit what news organizations are doing with these policies and show you what some of the debate centers around.

It basically boils down to asking the question, “How should reporters act online?” While many scholstic publications are online and have verbal policies in place, we have yet to find a written policy in practice from high school. If you have one, comment after the links and let us know about it.

Links to check out:

Journalists’ Use of Social Media – Mindy McAdams
Poynter, Newsrooms Develop Social Networking Policies for Journalists on Facebook, Myspace, Twitter – Kelly McBride
News Organizaitons Implement New Social Media Ethics Policies – Will Sullivan
Newspaper Social Media Policies Out of Touch – JD Lasica

How should a social media policy for scholastic media read? What does yours say? What does it not say?

Aaron Manfull

Aaron is in his 26th year of advising student media. He is currently the Director of Student Media at Francis Howell North High School in St. Charles, Missouri. He is the Journalism Education Association Digital Media Chair and co-Director of Media Now. He is the 2023 JEA Teacher Inspiration Award Winner and is a former Dow Jones News Fund National Journalism Teacher of the Year. He is one of the authors of the textbook "Student Journalism and Media Literacy." You can find him on X and Instagram @manfull. He's a proud father. A transplanted Iowan. And an avid Hawkeye Fan.

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