#ADDIG A SECOND ACCOUNT TO TWEETEN DRIVER#
#ADDIG A SECOND ACCOUNT TO TWEETEN SERIES#

But a lot of journalists really like being on Twitter, and they don’t see their accounts as just another pipe through which their employer’s journalism can flow. Reporters who were dragged kicking and screaming to Twitter can now leave without thinking their online silence will show up on their performance review. I appreciate the flexibility that these new guidelines offer. (Remember when the Times argued one reason it was fine to kill off its Public Editor position was that Twitter would fill any resulting complaint gaps?) Others will argue that the feedback a reporter gets from Twitter users is far more diverse - ideologically, demographically - than what they get from reader emails or their sources. (Will “I’m trying to be more thoughtful about how I engage online” be an acceptable answer when your editor asks why the Post and the Journal had a story and you didn’t?) But I can also imagine many arguing that he understates the value - the necessity - of Twitter to many beats. I can visualize a lot of people nodding along when he criticizes Twitter’s all-consuming nature for some reporters and the idea that its influence has distorted some journalism in unfortunate ways. Our interview, which is transcribed below, went in some interesting directions. And I think that gave Twitter more power than, frankly, it deserved.” I thought that some journalists were, you know, looking to Twitter for validation of their coverage. I thought it became outsized in its influence. We have readers there, we have people we want to hear. “This is not an attack on Twitter,” Baquet said.

Reporters should “strengthen our commitment to treating information with the journalistic skepticism that we would any source, story or critic.” And every tweet “needs to reflect the values of The Times and be consistent with our editorial standards, social media guidelines and behavioral norms.” The Times is also expanding its team of people devoted to protecting its journalists from abuse online (a group it calls the Threat Response Team) and investing further in security training and mental health resources.īeyond that, today’s announcements are less about instituting new policies than reemphasizing some existing ones. (It wasn’t mandatory before, but Baquet acknowledges that newsroom pressure to be on Twitter was real and significant.) Reporters can still be on Twitter, of course, but those who remain are encouraged “to meaningfully reduce how much time you’re spending on the platform, tweeting or scrolling, in relation to other parts of your job.” Translated into policy, this “reset” means that a social media presence “is now purely optional” for journalists. Bad tweets are a significant reputational threat to the Times and its staffers.

#ADDIG A SECOND ACCOUNT TO TWEETEN DRIVER#

It’s a major driver of harassment and abuse.It warps their reporting by changing who they see as their audience and the feedback they get on their work.Twitter takes up too much of journalists’ time.The Times’ argument seems to reduce down to a few points: “I think if you take a look at some journalists,” Baquet told me this morning, “at The New York Times and elsewhere - how often they tweet, what they tweet, the importance of what they tweet, how much time they spend on it - you’ve got to ask yourself: If your role is to find out important facts and tell them to the world, is that the way you want to spend your day?”Īs any Twitter user knows, there are lots of reasons to not be on Twitter.

#ADDIG A SECOND ACCOUNT TO TWEETEN SERIES#

This morning, in a series of memos from executive editor Dean Baquet and deputy managing editor Cliff Levy, the Times made it clear that it would like staffers to shoo away the little blue bird on their phones - or at least not feed it as often. That’s how I’d summarize The New York Times’ new guidelines on how its journalists use Twitter.

Addig a second account to tweeten