Strictly professional – what’s public and what’s private for journalists on Twitter?
Over on the BBC dot.life blog Rory Cellan-Jones debates the pros and cons of Twitter – where does the professional cross with the personal? What’s public and what’s private on the web?
Cellan-Jones, the BBC’s technology correspondent, had a recent wake-up call when PR contacts tracked his Twitters. A light-hearted blog by Cellan-Jones on the topic of Scrabulous led to an equally light-hearted message to a Twitter follower, which was then quoted on another website in a more serious manner.
In the latest posting he writes, ‘It’s a ‘a useful reminder that Twitter – like so many other online forums – is a public place, and what you say there may be used in evidence against you.’ He thinks that perhaps he ‘can no longer afford to be quite so careless.’
Needless to say, Journalism.co.uk is now keenly following Cellan-Jones’ tweets. Follow us too: @journalismnews, strictly professionally of course…
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September 2nd, 2008 at 2:06 pm
[...] have a sense of humour. First a public rebuke on the BBC for being “pompous” now journalism.co.uk doesn’t see the funny side. Any minute now, I’m expecting the National Union of [...]
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:18 am
Equally important question: does it have a permalink.
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:29 am
@Matt Wardman – does the individual tweet have a permalink?
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Over at http://www.theliberati.net/quaequamblog/2008/09/02/the-day-i-murdered-british-journalism/ we’ve been accused of losing our sense of humour. The intention of the post was to flag up Cellan-Jones’ concerns about quoting from Twitter, rather than directly criticising James Graham’s blog post.
As James’ later comment identified, blog posts are very much subject to interpretation by each reader, and his use of the Twitter quote might have got Rory Cellan-Jones’ goat more than was intended. Likewise, Cellan-Jones’ BBC post provoked Graham on his blog, and so it goes on.
Yes, I certainly can be bothered. Journalists are fascinated to see where social media takes and develops reporting, and how it redefines the remits of journalism, especially when journalists start to use different voices in a public manner. All we’re doing at Journalism.co.uk is documenting that, and hoping to stimulate further useful debate…
May 15th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
[...] he sent out an accidental direct message as a public tweet. And misunderstandings can arise — just ask BBC technology correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones. Worse, inaccuracies can occur, when a re-tweet becomes an endorsement of [...]