WHEN PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL COLLIDE:
ETHICS IN THE SOCIAL MEDIA ERA
John BethuneB2BMemes.com
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
“You don’t have to be an emotionless robot, but you need to act like one.”
Sports Illustrated Writer Fired for Clapping During Daytona 500,Noah Davis, SportsNewser, March 1, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Traditional journalistic ethics is predicated on firmly
separating the personal and private
from the professional and
public.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
privacy is dying, if not dead.
But in the social media era,
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
“You have zero privacy anyway.
Get over it.”
--Scott McNealy, 1999Flickr.com/webmink
This is not new.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Identity & Reputation
As a result of our “increasing publicness” of social media, identity and reputation are coming closer and sometimes into conflict.
-- Jeff Jarvis, Buzzmachine,com, March 8, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
The personal you and the professional you
are becoming one and the same.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Ethics in Transition
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Ethics in Transition
• If you have your own personal social media accounts, what are your responsibilities and risks?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Ethics in Transition
• If you have your own personal social media accounts, what are your responsibilities and risks?
• Do the companies we work for need social media policies?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Ethics in Transition
• If you have your own personal social media accounts, what are your responsibilities and risks?
• Do the companies we work for need social media policies?
• Do editors need their own personal policies?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Ethics in Transition
• If you have your own personal social media accounts, what are your responsibilities and risks?
• Do the companies we work for need social media policies?
• Do editors need their own personal policies?
• Is transparency more important than objectivity?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Ethics in Transition
• If you have your own personal social media accounts, what are your responsibilities and risks?
• Do the companies we work for need social media policies?
• Do editors need their own personal policies?
• Is transparency more important than objectivity?
• Is real-time, process journalism inherently more personal?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
“I had been wanting to start a blog for some time, but I fretted about . . . all those stories on the news about people who got fired for writing things on their blogs.”
--Steven Roll 2010
Can Social Media Get You Fired?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
–verb (internet, slang) Dismissed from one's job as a result of one's
actions on the Internet.
Heather Armstrong, fired in 2002 for comments she made on her personal website, dooce.com
Dooced
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Could it happen to you?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
CNN Producer Says He Was Fired for Blogging
Could it happen to you?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
CNN Producer Says He Was Fired for Blogging
Post Editor Ends Tweets as New Guidelines Are Issued
Could it happen to you?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
CNN Producer Says He Was Fired for Blogging
Post Editor Ends Tweets as New Guidelines Are Issued
CNN Fires Octavia Nasr over tweet praising late ayatollah
Could it happen to you?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
CNN Producer Says He Was Fired for Blogging
Post Editor Ends Tweets as New Guidelines Are Issued
CNN Fires Octavia Nasr over tweet praising late ayatollah
AP Reporter Reprimanded For Facebook Post
Could it happen to you?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Is the answer a corporate social media policy?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Is the answer a corporate social media policy?
Or will it just make things worse?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Reuters gets it right . . .“The distinction between the private and the professional has largely broken down online
and you should assume that your professional and personal social media
activity will be treated as one no matter how hard you try to keep them
separate.”
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
. . . and wrong
“The advent of social media does not change your relationship with the company that
employs you”
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
The advent of social media doesn’t just change your relationship with your
employer - it transforms that relationship.
The Reality:
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Associated Press
Q: Why does the AP care or think it should have a say in what I put on my
social networking feed/page?
A: We all have a stake in upholding the AP’s reputation for fairness and impartiality, which has been one of our chief assets for more than 160
years.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
News Media Guild
“Parts of the [AP] policy seem to be snuffing out peoples’ First Amendment rights of expression by a company that wraps itself in the First Amendment.”
--Tony Winton, Guild president
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Michael Hyatt, CEO, Thomas Nelson:5 Arguments Against Social Media Policies
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
1. Your people can be trusted.
Michael Hyatt, CEO, Thomas Nelson:5 Arguments Against Social Media Policies
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
1. Your people can be trusted.
2. Social media are just one more way to communicate.
Michael Hyatt, CEO, Thomas Nelson:5 Arguments Against Social Media Policies
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
1. Your people can be trusted.
2. Social media are just one more way to communicate.
3. More rules only make your company more bureaucratic.
Michael Hyatt, CEO, Thomas Nelson:5 Arguments Against Social Media Policies
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
1. Your people can be trusted.
2. Social media are just one more way to communicate.
3. More rules only make your company more bureaucratic.
4. Formal policies only discourage people from participating.
Michael Hyatt, CEO, Thomas Nelson:5 Arguments Against Social Media Policies
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
1. Your people can be trusted.
2. Social media are just one more way to communicate.
3. More rules only make your company more bureaucratic.
4. Formal policies only discourage people from participating.
5. You probably already have policies that govern behavior.
Michael Hyatt, CEO, Thomas Nelson:5 Arguments Against Social Media Policies
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Journal Register CEO John Paton’s Three Simple Rules
for Using Social Media
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Journal Register CEO John Paton’s Three Simple Rules
for Using Social Media
1.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Journal Register CEO John Paton’s Three Simple Rules
for Using Social Media
1.
2.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Journal Register CEO John Paton’s Three Simple Rules
for Using Social Media
1.
2.
3.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Do you need a personal social media policy?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Do you need a personal social media policy?
• Will you avoid covering the same area as your employer?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Do you need a personal social media policy?
• Will you avoid covering the same area as your employer?
• Will you tell your employer about your social media activity?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Do you need a personal social media policy?
• Will you avoid covering the same area as your employer?
• Will you tell your employer about your social media activity?
• Will you discuss your work on your personal accounts?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Do you need a personal social media policy?
• Will you avoid covering the same area as your employer?
• Will you tell your employer about your social media activity?
• Will you discuss your work on your personal accounts?
• Will you engage in your social media while at work?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
When privacy is dead, transparency becomes more important than objectivity
Transparency
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Sometimes transparency isn’t too personal. . .
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
And sometimes it gets very personal
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
“This disclosure and the interactive nature of blogging [make the conflict of interest acceptable]. . . . While some may raise
objections, Dow Jones feels the transparency will give readers a chance to judge my work on its
merits.”
Social Media: A Different Ethical Standard?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Is Transparency Alone Enough?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Two Views of Transparency. . . Pro
Henry Blodgett, Business Insider:
“Our policy is to take these opportunities case-by-case. If we think travel or an event partially paid for by a company will help us produce content that our readers love, we’ll be happy to consider it. If we think it will lead to us producing crap or fluff or be a waste of time, we won’t do it.”
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Two Views of Transparency. . . and Con
Felix Salmon, Reuters:
“Failure to disclose freebies like this is very bad; disclosing them, however, isn’t much better. So the best
solution is to simply refuse to take them.”
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
THE ETHICS OF REAL-TIME JOURNALISM
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
In traditional journalism, reporters stand apart from their personal selves and are
uninvolved in what they report on.
Haskell Wexler, Medium Cool (1969)
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
In real-time journalism, the observer often
becomes a participant
Paid Content 2011 conference. Photo and tweet by Rex Hammock (@r)
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Is Liveblogging Journalism?
The Guardian’s live blog combined wire service
reports, tweets, YouTube and livestream video, and
other sources.
Not everyone liked it.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Liveblogging Criticism
“There is no structure and therefore no sense, and the effect is of being in the
middle of a room full of loud, shouty and excitable people all yelling at once with
all the phones ringing, the fire alarm going off and a drunken old boy slurring
in your ear about ‘what it all means.’”
--John Symes
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Liveblogging Praise
“The liveblog isn't meant to be read when it's finished. It's meant to be read while it's happening. . . . It is a product of
the process-driven mindset . . . It is, as the very name suggests, a live thing.”
--Adam Tinworth
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Process Journalism:
Paying Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
“Online, the story, the reporting, the knowledge are never done and never perfect.
“That doesn’t mean that we revel in imperfection . . . [or] that we have no standards.
“It just means that we do journalism differently.”
Jeff Jarvis on Process Journalism
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Process-Journalism Standards
• Collaboration
• Transparency
• Letting readers into the process
• Saying what we don’t know
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
The best solution is to be yourself.
If that makes you uneasy, talk with your shrink.
Better yet, blog about it.
Personal or Professional?
-- Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine.com, March 8. 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011