In her recap of the week's media blunders by various outlets, Hilary Sargent (who runs the blog Chartgirl) used the example of Keys' misinformation — calling him the Reuters' "sort-of-former" social media editor — to lead her critique of the company at large.



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In a brief conversation earlier today, a representative of Reuters confirmed to The Atlantic Wire that Keys' tweets last week were solely his own and not on behalf of the company. Indeed, the company's robust liveblog of the week doesn't include tweets from Keys.

Keys defended one component of his actions — his reliance on using information from police scanners — in a post at his Facebook page with the title, "Dear Every Writer Or Editor Who Has Used My Name In A Critical Piece About The Boston Marathon And Scanner Traffic These Past Few Days." But he also offered another tacit defense of his efforts on Twitter.

...perhaps if I was in a real newsroom with access to my work email, instead of shut out a month ago, I wouldn't be working out of a bedroom — Matthew Keys (@TheMatthewKeys) April 19, 2013

In other words: If Reuters hadn't suspended him, he'd have been better able to share information.

It was the second time during the week that Keys criticized his former employer. On Wednesday, he charged that Anthony DeRosa, his boss at Reuters, was stealing his tweets.

Sara Morrison of Columbia Journalism Review (and a contributing writer for The Atlantic Wire) compiled a number of the responses to that charge. Michael Rusch of BuzzFeed summarized the sentiment:

This can't be good for Reuters: RT @thematthewkeys: .@antderosa please don't copy/paste from my tweets - twitter.com/TheMatthewKeys… — Michael Rusch (@weeddude) April 17, 2013

When asked, the Reuters representative we spoke with didn't offer any rationale for Keys' firing, merely confirming that he is no longer a Reuters employee. Keys has not yet replied to a request for comment, but he did explain his understanding of that rationale on Twitter:

Reuters said the basis of my termination was because I violated my final written warning. You can read it here - bit.ly/11eWmRu — Matthew Keys (@TheMatthewKeys) April 22, 2013

That letter, which apparently served as Key's final written warning as part of his termination process, alleges that he created a parody Twitter account. That account, mocking the CEO of Google, suggested that Keys wasn't "guided 24 hours a day by the ethics" of Thomson Reuters. Perhaps more to the point:

… the fake account embarrassed our News reporting team and has possibly damaged our relationship with a company that we have covered agressively. …



We must see immediate improvement in your communications with managers and more discretion in your social media practices.

Shortly before Keys announced that he had been terminated, DeRosa, his former boss, tweeted this:

Last I checked, Twitter is an opt-in medium. If you're getting bad information, blame yourself for choosing to trust the wrong people. — Anthony De Rosa (@AntDeRosa) April 22, 2013

Whether or not the two tweets are related is left as an exercise for the reader.