Media News - Wednesday, June 24, 2009

AP issues strict Facebook, Twitter guidelines to staff

The Associated Press is adopting a stringent social-networking policy for its employees, informing them to police their Facebook profiles 'to make sure material posted by others doesn't violate AP standards.' The policy (.pdf) comes weeks after an AP reporter was reprimanded for posting a comment to his own Facebook profile criticizing the Sacramento-based newspaper chain McClatchy, whose stock has become nearly worthless after a string of costly acquisitions. The AP's social-networking policy comes as the media at large begins adopting Facebook and Twitter guidelines during a time of explosive growth in online social media. The News Media Guild, representing about 1,000 AP journalists, says the AP's policy is perhaps the most restrictive the union has seen. The AP's new guidelines say employees should avoid including political affiliations in their profiles 'and stay clear of making any postings that express political views or take stands on contentious issues.' Stating the obvious, Gazlay's memo adds, 'virtually nothing is truly private on the internet.' But the most contentious element in the new policy, which the union also decried as 'vague,' gives this instruction to employees using Facebook: 'Monitor your profile page to make sure material posted by others doesn't violate AP standards: any such material should be deleted.' That means AP reporters, and all other AP employees, are held responsible for any comments posted by their friends to pictures or links on their profiles. (Wired)

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