Be Careful What You Tweet For Posted by konnectsc on October 11, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Normally, I would spend this short little three hundred or so word post marvelling at how the co-existence of social media and the age old journalism practices have developed into a wonderful symbiosis where each element compliments the advancement of each other.

But for once, I’d like to bring up the other side of the journalistic coin, that is, the potential detrimental effects of one medium upon the other. When does Twitter or WordPress become a threat to professional journalism?

I bring this topic up as recently on a local news station in the capital of Arkansas, known as Little Rock a bit of controversy was sparked as to the resignation of a journalist working for the CBS associate. The station is reputed for their adherence to the journalistic code and strong efforts to back the integrity of all stories they run.

However, the station known as ‘Today’s THV’ has, like many other public corporations and entities, an active twitter account, the staff member in question also had an active twitter account. So it came to a surprise when, in quite the muddle up, the tweet “I’m downtown eating. Surrounded by Mormons and repressed sexual energy,” was tweeted to that stations live Twitter account as opposed to his personal account. The employee “resigned immediately.”

This really raises the question as to how detrimental social media, like twitter, can be to a journalists’ career? Surely if we were in a pre Twitter era it is highly unlikely this particular journo’ could have accidentally slipped opinionated religious views into his print column! Do you guys feel his immediate resignation was the appropriate course of action? I know I sure won’t be Tweeting anything like that on mine or anyone else’s’ account any time soon.

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/THV_insider/story.aspx?storyid=121465&catid=311