Sunday, September 4, 2011

Washington Post conversations about social media and digital publishing

The Buttry Diary reporting:
Update: I’m going to re-use (and expand) on a line I used today in a private email exchange about the Washington Post Digital Publishing Guidelines: The Post’s 2009 social media policy was like a red light to Post journalists using social media. The new guidelines are more like a flashing yellow light. I would prefer a green light with a “drive safely” sign. But I welcome the improvement from red to yellow. Now here’s the original post, published earlier today.
Two years ago, I blogged that the Washington Post needed thoughtful conversations about smart use of social media, rather than a restrictive policy.
So I applaud that the Post is now having those conversations and sharing them with the public. I applaud without for a minute suggesting that my criticism was any part of the reason.
I don’t have the time or inclination to go point by point through the Post’s Digital Publishing Guidelines, detailing what I agree or disagree with. I did react at length in 2009: responding initially (linked above) to an ombudsman column explaining but not linking to the guidelines, then publishing the guidelines themselves after Staci Kramer published them at paidContent, then following up twice, once on the topic of trust and once on objectivity. That was probably an excessive response at the time...
I generally don’t favor rules as extensive as these new guidelines, broken into separate sections on sourcing, attribution, self-publishing, taste and tone, social media, third-party content and corrections and clarifications. But the guidelines are presented as advice, rather than rules, and explicitly encourage further discussion and continued evolution. I offer a lot of lengthy advice myself, and, as already noted, I specifically called for more and better discussion of these issues by the Post. So I will praise the guidelines generally as an important development.
By and large, the guidelines offer Post journalists (and the industry at large) a lot of good advice for digital publishing (not limited just to social media), along with specific examples of how to follow the advice. The guidelines at times sound more fearful and rigid than I would like and less trusting of journalists’ good judgment, but they are moving notably and substantially in a less fearful and rigid, more trusting direction, so I welcome the direction rather than quibbling about details.
A few points I will make:

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