The Times Issues Social Media Guidelines for the Newsroom [Best practices?]

[BuckeyeDEJ]

As a journalist who's been in the employ of the Sulzberger family, and who's slinged (slung?) enough ink around here to cover a decent-size city, I can tell you this:

Why hasn't The New York Times taken an industry lead on this? Why are they following the crowd again?

When I was at the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times, name change, that's all), we had a social media policy that could, if broken, impose sanctions including employment termination.

On the positive side, it will keep reporters from running their mouths. On the negative side, biases are driven further underground.

Where CAP is concerned, there are some social media guidelines hanging around. Common sense is a good starting point, though.

A few things I'd recommend, off the top of my head:
-- Don't use your rank as part of your name/handle. Just, seriously, don't.
-- Use your unit page to promote unit activities, and share to your personal profiles from those official posts.
-- As much as possible, do NOT conduct CAP business or make CAP announcements from your personal accounts (and that includes email).