Separating news from views: Does social media need a new player? Part 3
Determining what communities want and need in social media coverage seems to have generated a new media role: community manager.
According to information in a March 21, 2011, article by Ben LaMothe, Why Newspapers Need Community Managers on the 10000 words blog, the term may offer a way to brand online news coverage.
LaMothe cites the Econsultancy blog for the term and its use as a way to engage the community, set overall strategy and create branding for the media’s products.
Modifying such a role in online scholastic media might serve two essential purposes: differentiating between objective and subjective content and helping establish a “brand” for student online publications. A community manager might develop strategy for reaching and involving the communities and making daily updates: performing the medium’s public relations.
Some schools using the concept of community manager haven’t yet gotten anticipated results.
Meghan Morris, editor-in-chief of The Spoke in Pennsylvania, said her publication has an “operations manager,” but the role has not worked as she would have liked. She said she has found it hard to surrender the role. “In the future, this idea of ‘community manager,'” she said, “would be part of the web director or business manager’s role. Dealing with irate parents, facilitating focus groups or other ombud duties will remain the role of the EIC.”
Ted Noelker, managing editor of multimedia at Francis Howell Central in Missouri, said his publication launched its website and communications editor position at the same time to handle promotional aspects. He, too, said, he ended up doing much of the work of the position. “It is such an open-ended job,” he said. “It’s hard to cover all they need to so without being too narrow or too broad. It’s an important role, one that’s been tougth to fill.
LaMothe called the community manager a “must-have position” for a news organization. “The comments, your Facebook page and your Twitter page are all public-facing, and they deal directly with your readers on a daily basis,” he writes. He also says the position must be separate from the newsroom.
Anaika Miller of Foothill Technology High School in California agreed with Morris and Noelker about issues. “It has just become easier for me to handle public relations,” she said. “This works for our site, but in a professional newspaper, I bet the position could be utilized better if it were somebody’s focus/only job.”
All three referred to the position as one of public relations. Miller said no one at her school solely maintains the job because the workload is too light.
Minnesota adviser Jeff Kocur said the community manager role was similar in his school, with the editor using her Facebook status to push stories direct people to the publication’s site. He said he would consider adding a community manager position to his staff. “This person would be responsible for outreach and public relations in addition to writing stories and doing the exchange papers,” he said. “They would send out twitter feeds and facebook updates to push people to our site and manage online reader surveys. This would be an editor-level position, and they would still write stories.”
These staffs perceive a need for such a position, much as LaMothe and others urge. How the position is utilized, who fills it and what its ultimate role is, however, remain a work in progress.
Historically, a public relations role has been a hard one for scholastic media. Creation of a “community manager” might enable more community involvement as journalism grows in its use of social media. How that position develops and how it is differentiated from news reporting should be an ongoing discussion.
Ideally, a “community manager” role should be cleanly separated from that of news journalist, including separate sources and posts for public relations and news. To ensure the public understands journalism’s varied roles in a democracy, we must be transparent about what we say and what information from each source means.
Accomplishing that may not be quickly achieved as scholastic journalism increases its use of digital media. Clarifying the role of a “community manager” or similar position is a step toward scholastic journalism’s successful use of social media.
Read MoreIncorporating ethical guidelines into social media use: Part 2
In the first part of this series, Marina Hendricks, a commission member and student in a social role of the media class, talked about how scholastic media might create tools in the growing use of social media. Now, others in the class offer additional comments and suggestions.
This piece will suggest guidelines – and hopefully raise questions – about principles behind such tools in three key areas: information gathering, reporting and promotion, perhaps the most problematic new area of social media use. Overall, students in the class say the legal and ethical principles guiding social media use are the same as traditional, or legacy, media.
Key areas students focused on and their comments:
Information gathering
• Information gathered online should be independently confirmed offline. Interview sources in person or over the phone whenever possible. Students would verify claims and statements. This includes crowdsourcing.
• Correspondingly, the instantaneous time element makes it more difficult to verify spot news, so be upfront about non-verified info. In fact, don’t run anything on social media students have not verified.
• Specific links (not just click here) should be provided to attribute the source/attribution for any online resources used or indicated.
• Be transparent with the audience as well as sources. Let them know how you contacted people, in what context you gathered the information and how you verified it (or didn’t).
• Student journalists who insist on avoiding social networks are likely to miss good opportunities and great stories. If all your sources came from the Internet, they would skew toward the more affluent and educated. When you interview people digitally, you miss a lot of good information. Journalists must strive for diverse representations of sources in their stories.
• These new tools can generate story ideas, allow readers more interaction with the reporters, and increase the reporter’s ability to find sources and network. These are certainly excellent additions to the tool belt of resources reporters have available to them to do their job.
• Social media will not replace traditional reporting; its primary purpose should be in making initial contact with subjects or verifying quotes and facts after an interview.
Objectivity and credibility in reporting
• When using social networks, nothing can call into question the impartiality of student news judgment. Student media must never abandon the guidelines that govern the separation of news from opinion, the importance of fact and objectivity, the appropriate use of language and tone, and other hallmarks of our brand of journalism. … This same caution should be used when joining, following or friending any person or organization online.
• Ensure informed consent. It’s easy for sources to misunderstand your intentions. It is your responsibility to tell them who you are, what you are doing and where your work will run. Take special consideration with children and other vulnerable people. When contacting children, make sure they connect you with a responsible adult.
• Breaking news posts – all news posts – must be approved by a student editor. No exceptions.
• The student media site will not publish images from social media networking sites.
• Typos, biased language and even possible outright privacy breaches posted by individual reporters, acting without a system of checks and balances, will call into question the professionalism of student media and challenge its credibility.
• If the audience perceives biased or unfair coverage, they will no longer trust the student media as news sources and the capacity for elevating community dialog to issues of importance will be lost.
Promotion of student work
• Professional material (reporting and leadership) should not mix with private or promotional materials.
• It is important and valuable to promote our work through social networks. Student journalists bear most of this burden. But the newsroom as an institution is responsible for some of this work. When promoting your work:
- Be accurate. It’s easy to sensationalize or oversimplify.
- Be clear. If you are not a good headline writer, seek some training.
- Always include a link and make sure the link works.
• Journalists must recognize that everything on their social media has the potential to influence their reputations and by extension newsroom credibility.
- Don’t post information that could embarrass you or your newsroom, even if you believe your page is private.
- Use the tools, such as limited profiles and privacy settings, to restrict access to your most private information.
- Recognize that your actions can be misinterpreted. You may sign up for a group to get story ideas, but people may see you as a fan. State your intentions often, in wall posts and other notifications. When appropriate, tell groups when you are signing up that you are looking for story ideas.
- Manage your friends and their comments. Delete comments and de-friend people who damage your reputation.
- Social media could also enhance our outreach to the community. Using tools such as Twitter and Facebook, we can push students to our website by letting them know what stories we have recently posted. We can advertise when we are next distributing our newspaper. We can solicit story ideas, invite letters to the editor, or request feedback while we are in the process of putting our paper together. From a strictly practical standpoint, social media can allow us to let others see the great work we are doing more frequently, and, hopefully, engage them in a more earnest discussion about our role in the school.
- Social media opens journalism to be a more two-way form of communication. Reporters can find the people they need and readers can interact with the people their story had an impact on almost immediately. They may not like everything sources or readers tell them, but at least there is feedback.
Resources used for these points
• “Social Media and Young Adults”
• Newspaper social media policies: Out of touch
• Journalists use of social media
• Using email as a reporting tool
• Online journalism ethics: A new frontier
• News organizations work to set social media policies
• Online journalism guidelines: guidelines from the conference
A tip of the hat to these 10 wonderful students, all journalism educators or commercially working journalists, who helped sort through these and other resources: Andrew Christopulos, Traci Hale Brown, Marina Hendricks, Judy Holman Stringer, Trevor Ivan, Lori King, Kate Klonowski, Jeff Kocur, Dino Orsatti, Chris Waugaman.
What points would you add, subtract or question?
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Developing standards for social media use in your student media: Part 1
by Marina Hendricks, SPRC commissioner
For “Social Role of the Mass Media,” a Kent State University online graduate course, John Bowen asked us to draft a position paper on social media as a tool for student journalists. I found it easier to think through the assignment by approaching it as a hypothetical letter from an adviser to students. Here’s the result.
Dear students,
Before we launch our Facebook page and Twitter feed, I’d like you to think about how you will use them in your coverage of the school community.
Keep in mind that our editorial policy applies not only to our print edition and website, but also to our social network platforms. As a result, your Facebook posts and tweets must be accurate, objective and fair. Information you collect from or share via Facebook and Twitter must be checked and verified – with no exceptions. This is especially critical for breaking news. You must get it right, even when it takes time to verify facts. Your audience depends on you for accurate information and trusts you to provide it. You don’t want to jeopardize that trust. Once it’s gone, it may never return. And readers and users will go with it.
Just as important, you must practice transparency. For readers and users, that means letting them know where you obtained information and under what circumstances. For sources, that means telling them how you plan to use information they provide. And as always, refer to the policy for guidance on anonymous sourcing.
Be vigilant about Facebook and Twitter content that is libelous, obscene, materially disruptive of the school process, an unwarranted invasion of privacy, a violation of copyright or a promotion of products or services unlawful (illegal) as to minors as defined by state or federal law.
Speaking of promotion, remember that you are in the news business, not public relations. You wouldn’t include rah-rah statements in print or online stories, would you? The same rule applies for social media content.
We’ve talked a lot about the responsibilities associated with being journalists. As tempting as it sometimes is, we don’t use our power of publication to promote personal agendas or settle scores. The instantaneous nature of social networks makes that even more tempting. However, I know you will continue to use the same exceptional judgment you bring to our print and online publications by remembering at all times that you represent (school publication name). I know your posts and tweets will reflect your professionalism as journalists.
Our Facebook page and Twitter feed give us two new ways to reach our school community. Use them to start conversations, seek feedback and provide another window into our newsroom.
Finally, take a look at our editorial policy and see if there’s anything you want to update with respect to our social media platforms.
Good night, and good luck …
Your Adviser
Resource: “Online Ethical Considerations,” provided through Social Role of the Mass Media, Kent State University, spring 2011
Read MoreReaching out: Informing the community about key principles of journalism
by Marina Hendricks, SPRC member
Recently, I drafted the following plan for student journalists to use to educate their communities about the role of school publications as forums for public criticism and compromise. I did so as part of my ongoing work for “Social Role of the Mass Media,” a Kent State University online graduate course this semester taught by John Bowen.
“In a world where millions are spent annually by those wanting to influence public opinion, it is crucial that the news media play the role of honest broker and referee as it carries the common discussion. … So journalism must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise,” Bill Kovach and Tom Rosensteil write in “The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect.”
“Yet in a new age, it is more important, not less, that this public discussion be built on the same principles as the rest of journalism, starting with truthfulness, facts, and verification. For a forum without regard for facts fails to inform,” the authors add.
Scholastic journalists are often hindered in their efforts to provide public forums for criticism and compromise by administrators, district officials and other well-meaning adults whose desire to safeguard schools and their students leads to acts of prior review and restraint. Students at large may not understand and appreciate their First Amendment rights, which undermines their support for the public forums of expression provided to them through their school publications. Local media professionals and local citizen may not understand and support the role of school publications as public forums in the community at large.
To address these issues, student journalists could organize a series of outreach activities. These events could be scheduled on a regular basis – once a month, once every nine weeks, once a semester – whatever best fits the school publication’s schedule. More frequent activities could take place during homeroom, lunch, breaks or other open periods during the school day. Less frequent activities could be scheduled after school, in conjunction with other events (such as parent-teacher conferences, PTO meetings, etc.), on Saturdays or even as part of a community fair or festival.
Activities could include:
1) An open house in the newsroom for anyone interested in the school publication and how it operates;
2) A scholastic journalism fair to showcase the work of student journalists in the school district, to raise First Amendment awareness and to provide training opportunities for student journalists;
3) Visits to feeder schools to train and network with aspiring young journalists;
4) Presentations to the faculty senate, PTO, booster and alumni organizations, the local school district board and local organizations to raise awareness of the school publication and its role in the school community;
5) Educational sessions with local media professionals, moderated by student journalists, to help members of the school community learn more about issues that interest them;
6) Operating booths at local events to raise awareness of the school publication, its role in the school community and the First Amendment;
7) Expanding distribution of the school publication (local library branches, malls/shopping centers, community centers, restaurants, etc.) to raise awareness of its role in the community;
8) Forming a parent booster/support group for the school publication;
9) Designating a “reader advocate” to handle questions, concerns, story suggestions, etc.
10) Preparing a “press kit” for school organizations to help them understand how to submit information, news releases, story ideas, requests for photos, etc. (Then, deliver it in person so members of the organizations can ask questions.)
*Note: We welcome your additions of outreach that work to this list. List them, plus your school, in the comments section below.
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Foundations for Scholastic Journalism
Late last year, the Scholastic Press Rights Commission asked JEA members and others what clear statements about legal and ethical issues they would like to see compiled in one easy-to-access place.
From their responses the Commission created these 11 Foundations for Scholastic Journalism, in downloadable PDF form below, the first installment of our series. Foundations run from the general, including curriculum standards for law and ethics, to the precise, such as how and when to get consent when publishing articles. It’s a start, and the Commission welcomes suggestions for others we can add in the future.
Some of these incorporate and expand on JEA policies and statements the Board has passed and are available elsewhere on the Web, but here you will find them all in one place. They also offer links to resources that support each concept and can serve as handouts or posters.
1. Journalism as 21st Century skills
- 2. A Free and Responsible Student Press
3. Administrators Should Support Scholastic Journalism
4. Why advisers should oppose censorship
5. The Importance of Getting Consent
6. The Use of Anonymous Sources
7. Verification is important
8. Handling controversy
9. Foundations to meet Common Core standards for law and ethics
10. A road map: Getting to know the SPLC
11. Who owns the copyright?
We welcome your feedback and recommendations.
Read More#sjw11: As journalism teachers our job is to fight censorship
Teaching journalism is rewarding, but can become frightening and frustrating when advisers face prior review and/or censorship as part of their daily expectations.
A key decision to fight censorship, Adam Goldstein, SPLC attorney advocate said, is for journalism teachers who live with prior review or restraint to do more than recognize its educational weaknesses.
Their job, he said, is to oppose it as best they can.
“Prior review sends the message that actions don’t have consequences because there’s always someone else who can clean up your mistakes,” Goldstein said in an interview. “People who grow up in an environment without consequences don’t function well in the real world.”
JEA knows some teachers may face job loss if they try to protect student learning. We know sometimes there is no other choice but to do as ordered.
Still, we urge all teachers to consider these points:
• Advisers teach professional approaches to journalism – whether in gathering information, in providing leadership through coverage or opinion or in presenting the information accurately, completely and coherently.
Limiting this process strips any pretense of student learning, critical thinking or application of principles schools teach. It also strips away information citizens need to maintain civic engagement.
“The entire gamble of representative democracy is that people make good choices in their own best interest when provided with honest information,” Goldstein said.
• Students learn most when they practice responsible journalism. When advisers are required to accept censorship or censor students’ work themselves, they are placed in an untenable position undermining what they strive to teach.
“Aspirationally,” Goldstein said, “If the goal of education is to prepare students for their role in society, nothing is more essential to that role than the ability to create and disseminate their thoughts. The entire marketplace of ideas that makes our democracy function depends on it.”
• Students and communities suffer when censorship exists.
“Censorship of high school students creates new citizens in that democracy who think, first, that the information isn’t honest; and second, that they aren’t free to share their own information,” Goldstein said. “These days people look at the political process and wonder how it got so hostile, misinformed and regressive, and then shrug their shoulders when, every day in high schools, students are told not to tell the truth.”
• Learning to report material responsibly is a unique opportunity denied students who face censorship. The exciting part of advising and teaching journalism is watching students expand their ideas and become educated not only in the specifics of media but also about the importance of a free press in a democracy.
“Prior restraint is even more troubling because it undermines everything we try to instill in students about the American way of life,” Goldstein said. “The ability to just remove the right to free expression from anyone is something that is irreconcilable with our political system. So students get cynical about it and think administrators are liars.”
• Reviewing media materials, while not illegal, has no legitimate educational value. Advisers need to educate themselves, their administrators and their communities about students’ legal rights, ethical responsibilities and educational obligations.
“Journalism and social studies teachers end up suffering the most when they turn a blind eye to student rights because they are the ones tasked with inculcating a respect for the values that censorship violates,” Goldstein said. “It’s one thing if a science teacher chooses not to believe in the basic functions of democracy, but if your journalism teacher doesn’t think speech is important, it suggests that nobody thinks this is important.”
• Some administrators are unaware there is no legal or educational rationale for censorship. Teachers can help them understand the value of journalism to all stakeholders. Journalism education organizations can enhance the ongoing education of all parties.
The full measure of the Hazelwood decision, CSPA director Edmund J. Sullivan said in a JEA listserv discussion, won’t be felt until the generation of advisers working before 1988 leaves the scene.
That is now happening.
Knight chair for Scholastic Journalism Mark Goodman said in hundreds, maybe thousands of high schools around the country, there is no censorship.
“It is possible to create an environment in your student media program that supports the values of our democracy and does something other than teach students how ‘journalism’ is practiced in China,” Goodman said.
At other schools, that may take time, he said, but it’s worth striving for and doesn’t have to risk your job in the process.
“The one thing that I think is vital — our most important obligation —” Goodman said, is “we HAVE to teach students that censorship is wrong, morally, educationally, journalistically, even when it cannot be avoided or overcome. And we have to do it in such a way that we don’t make kids so cynical they think the entire idea of the First Amendment is a joke.”
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