After Sky News’s crackdown on Twitter use – and specifically retweeting non-Sky journalists – was revealed last night, it’s the BBC’s turn to clarify its position.

In a post on the BBC editors’ blog today, social media editor Chris Hamilton says the corporation has distributed some revised breaking news guidance to correspondents, reporters and producers.

It says that, when they have some breaking news, an exclusive or any kind of urgent update on a story, they must get written copy into our newsroom system as quickly as possible, so that it can be seen and shared by everyone – both the news desks which deploy our staff and resources (like TV trucks) as well as television, radio and online production teams.

We’ve been clear that our first priority remains ensuring that important information reaches BBC colleagues, and thus all our audiences, as quickly as possible – and certainly not after it reaches Twitter.

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It started with a tweet from BBC News channel controller Kevin Bakhurst

I’m told #SkyNews have stopped their journos retweeting information/tweets from journalists or people not working for Sky. Must be wrong??

The guidelines, seen by the Guardian, state:

Do not retweet information posted by other journalists or people on Twitter. Such information could be wrong and has not been through the Sky News editorial process.

Don’t tweet when it’s someone else’s story. Stick to your own beat. Always pass breaking news lines to the news desk before posting them on social media networks.

Guardian reporter Josh Halliday said last night:

Sky News battening down hatches on this one. Told new guidelines are non-negotiable – how long will they last??

A hashtag campaign soon got under way to #savefieldproducer – Sky’s popular digital news editor Neal Mann, who has more than 40,000 followers on Twitter.

He replied:

Been a busy day, for those asking me questions about social media policy,I can’t really answer because I didn’t take part in the discussions

In a Reuters piece headlined “Sky News longs for Victorian internet, applies dark age social policy”, Anthony de Rosa writes:

These new rules will hamstring Neal and make it difficult, if not impossible, for him to continue to do what he did to garner so much appreciation from people like me. I suspect Sky will come to their senses and realize the error of their ways. If not, they’re going to lose one of their best ambassadors in Neal, and I would suspect many people working at Sky may wonder if they’re working for an organization that is writing policies that will drive them into obsolescence.

The FT’s Ben Fenton says competitors are likely to benefit:

Just as you never get good search-engine optimisation if you don’t link to outside sites, so anyone who steadfastly refuses to be anything but a puff factory for their own brand will gradually loses friends.

This step will also be likely to offer a competitive advantage to other news sources, such as ITV News or the BBC, enlightened enough to see beyond the blinkers of brand identity.

The move, does, however have some supporters. Sunny Hundal, on the Liberal Conspiracy blog, writes:

The ban on RTs makes sense if you acknowledge their worry that disputed links or info by their journalists could reflect on Sky News itself.

Is it any surprise editors at Sky News feel that a RT not meant as an endorsement could be interpreted in that way anyway? After all, people still attack me for publishing editorials on LC even if I disagree with those views. Once a Twitter mob gets going it’s very difficult to calm it down.

Of course this also implies Sky News editors don’t want to give their own journalists too much leeway in using their judgement. But all the broadcasters have hefty rule books for journalists (I expect the BBC will follow Sky), so this isn’t that surprising.

And Fleet Street Blues says the new policy has some logic to it:

It makes no sense for Sky News to pay journalists to break stories through another medium. It makes no sense for them to pay journalists to amass personal social media followings by promoting rival news outlets. And it makes no sense for them to pay journalists to report through a medium outside its own editorial controls.

Sky News said in a statement last night:

Sky News has the same editorial procedures across all their platforms including social media to ensure the news we report is accurate.

Rupert Murdoch replied this morning:

I have nothing to do with Sky NewsWhat do you make of the new policy? Is it enforceable? What effect might it have on Sky’s reputation?

Gabrielle Laine Peters has put together an excellent Storify of tweets and opinion around the Sky directive. Here is her collated selection called Sky News new social media guidelines get Twitter buzzing.

Elana Zak has also used Storify to collage reactions.Similar Posts:

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On Memeburn Peter Verweij has produced a great list running through the different ways journalists can verify the content of tweets and avoid being tripped up. These include using Twitter itself to crowdsource to verify information and also how to check the authenticity of images.

Tipster: Rachel McAthy

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App of the week: Flipboard

Operating systems: iOS (iPhone or iPad)

Cost: free

What is it and how is it of use to journalists? Flipboard is a social magazine app that can help you follow stories and dig around for leads.

It is similar to Zite (a previous app of the week) and launched for the iPhone at the around the same time, at the end of last year.

Rather than being a case of either/or, journalists with an iPhone or iPad should download both Zite and Flipboard as they have different strengths.

Both apps ask you to add you Twitter, Facebook and Google Reader accounts, but where Zite displays fewer news stories all in one list, Flipboard offers real-time feeds and separates Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr posts.

Flipboard is a great way of following your Twitter feed, offering a more visual way of keeping up-to-date by using the app’s swipe to flip motion.

Reviews: Flipboard gets five stars in the iTunes App Store

Have you got a favourite app that you use as a journalist? Fill in this form to nominate an app for Journalism.co.uk’s app of the week for journalists.Similar Posts:

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Toni Knevitt, London College of Communication

Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow gave the annual Hugh Cudlipp lecture last night, in which he gave a powerful speech on what he views as the advent of “journalism’s golden age”.

Snow has published the full version of his speech on his Snowblog, but here are some highlights from the lecture.

Much of his speech discussed how new technology and real-time news across platforms has an impact on the work of journalists:

Contrast therefore my first reporting from Uganda in 1976 and my most recent foreign assignment in 2011.

That first report on the ground in Uganda dealt with the horror of Amin, it was graphic, and because I was not constrained by immediate “live” deadlines and the rest, I had time to hang about to try to grab an interview with the tyrant: that’s the upside. But I had little mechanism for developing any sense of how the story connected with the outside world – the UN, Westminster and the rest.

… Contrast that with my last major foreign assignment in Cairo’s Tahrir Square where I tweeted, blogged, reported, fed the bird, and then anchored that night’s Channel 4 News live from just outside the Square. Mind you, with the pressures of time, some of the fun has gone out of it all.

For journalists, he said, the “liberation” of the media gives way to a new “golden age of journalism”:

We are in the age of answer back, better still we are in the age in which “we the people” have their greatest opportunity ever to influence the information agenda … But above all we are in the age of more. More potential to get it right, to get it fast, to get it in depth. We have that illusive entity “the level playing field”, we can compete on equal terms and yet be the best.

He also passed comment on some of the biggest issues facing the news industry today, from regulation to the phone hacking scandal:

I think it is absolutely right that there is a regulator that people can go to. Who are we to be above the opportunity for people to review what we’ve done? Furthermore I do not want to find my own editors somewhere in the mix. I want an objective regulator.

… Of course, papers and TV are entirely different beasts, and they work in entirely different ways, but I see no reason why print journalism wouldn’t benefit from a credible regulator in the same way TV has.

And not forgetting the Leveson inquiry, which is currently looking at the culture and ethics of the press:

Leveson should recommend many of the people and institutions that have been before him find a way of allowing their staff to get stuck into the real world, it will vastly improve and deepen their journalism. We journalists are not a breed a part – we must be of the world we report. The hacking scandal reveals an echelon of hacks who removed themselves from the world in which the rest of us live – they took some weird pleasure in urinating on our world.

But finally, he called for journalists to be given more time and space wherever possible:

The speed and pace of what all of us is doing is starving, television journalists in particular, of the opportunity to develop the stature and presence of our forebears.

These were people who had days in which to prepare their stories, dominated a tiny handful of channels, and became iconic figures in the medium. It is much, much harder for journalists today to ascend the same ladder and preside with their kind of authority and we need to afford talent the time, the space and the working experience to develop the authority that our medium depends upon.

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Tool of the week: Formulists

What is it? A tool to create smart Twitter lists (and more).

How is it of use to journalists? Formulists is a fantastic tool to create Twitter lists. Simply sign in with your Twitter account, search for a keyword such as “journalist” and Formulists will create a Twitter list of all the people you follow with the word “journalist” in their profile. Formulists found that 135 people I follow include the word journalist in their profile, for example. Here is the Twitter list.

But be warned: Formulists is shutting down. You can still create lists but they will no longer be automatically updated.

It is a real shame this tool is being pulled, particularly as Twitter lists are a great way for journalists to filter those they want to follow and focus on. If your “all friends” stream has become too busy, make it more manageable by creating lists based on keywords while you still can. Your lists will not be updated as you follow additional Twitter users but Formulists provides a great way to start creating new lists.

It is worth exploring Formulists as it allows you to do more than simply create lists, such as allowing you to search for new Twitter users by topic.

The Formulists blog also points out some additional Twitter filtering tools.Similar Posts:

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App of the week: Tweetbot

Operating systems: iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch)

Cost: £1.99

What is it and how is it of use to journalists? If you are a Twitter-using journalist with an iPhone, this app is a must.

It is a cut above the rest as it has some really handy functionality that is absent in many other Twitter apps.

Tweetbot takes settings from the Twitter app on your phone, making for a quick set up for those with multiple accounts.

One of the really useful things for journalists is the ability to follow various lists as you mine for stories (as shown in the picture on the left). If you have found that your Twitter stream is too busy, lists are the best way of filtering.

You can also see conversations and retweets. By sweeping a tweet to the right you can see the full exchange of tweets.

The app has various customisable buttons and tap actions. For example, you can configure triple tap to reply to, favourite, retweet, or even translate a tweet.

Other gestures worth learning are double tapping on a tweet, link, or avatar which takes you to the respective details, and tapping and holding, which gives you options to share. This includes options to read it later (for example by syncing with Instapaper or another service) and to copy a tweet,  particularly helpful if you are using a timeline from one account and want to tweet from another.

Reviews: It gets 4.5 stars in iTunes App Store.

Have you got a favourite app that you use as a journalist? Fill in this form to nominate an app for Journalism.co.uk’s app of the week for journalists.Similar Posts:

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App of the week: Zite

Operating systems: Apple: iPhone or iPad

Cost: Free

What is it and how is it of use to journalists? If you are feeling overwhelmed by the number of RSS feeds, tweets with links to articles and other social media sources you are tasked with checking, download Zite.

Released first as a personalised magazine for iPad, an iPhone app was launched not long before Christmas and offers a fantastic way of finding stories you may have missed.

Zite mashes together your Twitter, Google Reader and Read It Later feeds and delivers posts around your subject area.

Not only does Zite surface posts you may miss using Twitter and RSS, it is intelligent and allows your to teach it exactly what you like and don’t like via thumbs up, thumbs down buttons displayed on the story.

Zite will automatically work out your niche interests, which appear as categories along the top of the iPhone app and can be swiped through.

You can, of course, share to Twitter, email, Facebook and other services, including Evernote and Pinboard.

Zite’s advantage could also be its downside: it only delivers a handful of stories rather than many every minute as Twitter does (presuming you are following lots of sources). To some this may be a disadvantage, to others they will enjoy reading the manageable amount of interesting posts the app unearths.

Have you got a favourite app that you use as a journalist? Fill in this form to nominate an app for Journalism.co.uk’s app of the week for journalists.Similar Posts:

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Many questions have been raised about what should happen when journalists with a strong online profile, in particular on platforms such as Twitter, leave a company, and whether their followers should … well follow.

In June last year this occurred when the BBC’s former chief political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg left for ITV, and there was much discussion online about whether or not she would take the thousands of followers of her BBC-branded account with her. Behind the scenes she says there was an “amicable” discussion with the broadcaster, resulting in her being able to transfer the account.

More recently in the US the issue has been returned to the spotlight after a mobile news site reportedly sued a former employee, after he left the company and altered his Twitter name.

While the news industry waits to see what the future of this case will hold, we speak to three journalists using slightly different approaches to their Twitter accounts to find out what is working for them and the importance of legal precedent in this area.

The journalists we hear from are:

• Laura Kuenssberg, business editor for ITV, who has a branded account: @ITVLauraK
• Joanna Geary, digital development editor at the Guardian, who has a separate personal account and branded, professional account: @joannageary and @GuardianJoanna
• Anthony De Rosa, social media editor at Reuters, who has a non-branded account: @AntDeRosa

Journalism.co.uk’s next news:rewired event will feature a panel debate on social media standards.

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Click the above image to connect with Journalism.co.uk on Twitter

After putting together some lists of the top 10 Twitter news stories of 2011, the top 10 Facebook news stories of 2011 and Journalism.co.uk’s top 10 stories on Facebook in 2011, we’ve compiled a list of the most tweeted Journalism.co.uk news stories and blog posts of the year.

1. Journalists increasingly using social media as news source, finds study 1,250

2. BBC developing new iPhone app for field reporters 911

3. Ten ways journalists can use Google+ 881

4. Julian Assange wins Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism 720

5. Al Jazeera English hits US screens after New York cable deal 508

6. #ijf11: Lessons in data journalism from the New York Times 468

7. How the five journalists with the greatest online influence use social media 367

8. ‘Is there a better way of doing this?’: Johann Hari responds to plagiarism accusations 361

9. #su2011: New online open newsroom a hit for Swedish newspaper 356

10. News of the World to publish final edition this Sunday 318

Data was gathered using Searchmetrics.

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Tool of the week: Rippla

What is it? A tool that allows you to monitor the social media “ripples” of a news story

How is it of use to journalists? Rippla was launched last month as a tool that tracks how news and information reaches into people’s conversations on social media.

It may be interesting to find out that the story with the most “ripples” is currently the Mail Online’s Hilarious video shows cat stroking crying baby and sending him to sleep, followed by George Monbiot’s Guardian comment This bastardised libertarianism makes ‘freedom’ an instrument of oppression, But what is particularly helpful for journalists is the ripples tracker.

Ripples tracker allows you to enter the URL or a news story and see how many times it has been shared on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks and find out how many bit.ly click-throughs the post has received.

Rippla also offers news sites a widget than can be added (as embedded below), which displays the most socially shared news stories.

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The past year has been a big year for mobile reporting, bringing readers to the heart of stories both at home, such as the London riots, as well as abroad, such as the Arab Spring.

The year is also ending with handing down of new guidance of the use of text-based devices, including mobiles, when reporting from court, which has given greater powers to journalists when wishing to report live and tweet on proceedings.

In this week’s #jpod, news editor Rachel McAthy speaks to journalists about the key events in recent years which have demonstrated some of the best of mobile reporting and what the future holds in this area. Interviewees include special projects editor for the Guardian Paul Lewis, special correspondent for the Times Alexi Mostrous, music editor at the Guardian Caspar Llewellyn Smith and reporter for Washington DC’s news station WTOP Neal Augenstein.

We also find out more about the technology available from SoundCloud’s audio content manager Ben Fawkes.

Journalism.co.uk’s next news:rewired event will feature a session on mobile reporting.

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This is essential reading for anyone who embeds tweets into a news story or blog post.

Twitter now has an “embed this tweet” option on all tweets.

In the new Twitter, simply find the tweet you want to embed, click Twitter name (e.g. The Stream or The New York Times) on the individual tweet, then “details” and click “embed this tweet” and copy and paste the code.

This replaces the need to use Twitter’s (buggy) Blackbird Pie tool or a plugin such as Embedly.

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Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge is due to outline “revised practice guidance” on “electronic text-based communications” tomorrow (Wednesday, 13 December), in a follow-up to interim guidance issued a year ago.

In December 2010 England and Wales’ most senior judge provided guidance which said individuals could be granted permission to use a mobile phone or other small electronic device “in order to make live text-based communications of the proceedings”, as long as they had made a prior application to the court.

At the time the guidance emphasised that permission for live reporting of court proceedings would only be granted based on each individual case.

According to a press notice, since issuing this guidance the Lord Chief Justice has run a consultation which has included contributions from figures such as the Secretary of State for Justice and Attorney General as well as bodies such as the Press Complaints Commission and Society of Editors.

Once the guidance is outlined in court it will be published online, the notice added.Similar Posts:

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The Inforrm (International Forum for Responsible Media) Blog has produced a great list of “useful media law tweeters” who can be followed to keep up with events in the legal world concerning journalism.

As well as a list of 90 tweeters the blog post also offers some useful hashtags to follow relating to current media law events, such as #Leveson and #libelreform.

See the Inforrm post here.

Tipster: Rachel McAthy

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

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