New York Times social media editor off to a sociable start

First tweets tend to be pretty lame (mine was), often something like “trying to figure out this Twitter thing.”

Jennifer Preston of the New York Times got off to a better start, asking in her inaugural tweet Tuesday:

Hi, I’m the NYT’s new social media editor. More details later. How should @nytimes be using Twitter?

With 40 characters to spare, she identified herself clearly and started being social, starting to learn and preparing to teach, which is exactly what a new social media editor should do. I also like that she’s identifying herself in her profile as more than her job. She’s also a mother of twins, an author and a friend. It’s a nice contrast to the Wall Street Journal’s admonition against mixing personal and professional, which goes against the culture of the social media.

I’m pleased that The Gazette was several months ahead of the Times in designating a staff member to lead us into the social media. I appointed  Jamie Kelly our social media guide last summer.

I suspect Jamie was better qualified for his job than Preston. Unless she had a private Twitter account (I couldn’t find one) before Tuesday’s appointment, her first use of one of the most important and prominent social networks came after her new gig was announced Tuesday. She’s on LinkedIn (only 15 connections, though that will grow; she already has more than 3,000 Twitter followers) and Facebook, though we don’t know yet how much she has used either. I saw no sign of her on Flickr and didn’t check other social networks she might be on. Her social media education will be quite scrutinized. But on the other hand, not many of us are more than a year or two ahead of her. And as I wrote in a pair of posts early in my Twitter time, you learn quickly.

I responded immediately with a tweet  encouraging Preston to talk to Jamie and to check out my Twitter tips for editors and my post on journalism ethics in social networks. I meant to write a blog post offering lots of advice (as condescending as that sounds) to Preston, but two other bloggers (probably more, but I’ve seen these two), David Kaplan and Patrick Thornton, offered some really sound advice already (Preston already acknowledged Kaplan’s).

I’ll disagree with Patrick on one point: The nytimes Twitter feed has 946,401 followers (it grew by 2,000 from when I wrote the first draft of this post last night), just offering headlines and links. That’s giving a lot of tweeps something they want, so I wouldn’t mess with that. Patrick is right that you should be social in social media, and I encourage being more interactive with other Twitter profiles, but New York Times headlines and links obviously interest lots of people more than they do Patrick. So give those people what they want. And then follow the rest of Patrick’s advice.

Adam Darowski also offered (not directed at Preston, but valuable to her anyway) some helpful advice on “How To Use Twitter and not Be a Douchebag.” I tweeted a link to his piece and then was retweeted 11 times, which is a lot for me.

Rather than echoing or adding to the good advice offered already, I’ll weigh in with a review of Preston’s first 31 tweets (the most-watched Twitter debut since Oprah?):

• She already has the hang of retweeting, echoing the advice offered to her by several tweeps and replying to more.
• She understands the importance of links, passing along a link to Kaplan’s blog and to a list of Times Twitter feeds (another link she attempted to pass along was a busted link).
• Preston understands the value of courtesy, thanking tweeps seven times for their help and praising suggestions she received.
• She discussed the Times’ use of Twitter, mentioning that Andrew Sorkin had tweeted from an event.
• She told us that she had attended a Twitter session by some Times colleagues. That would have been a great event for twittercasting (or a liveblog using Twitter feeds from her and other Times staffers attending). She got some advice in that session from Jennifer 8. Lee, whom I enjoy following.
• She’s seeking (or listenting to) advice from veteran Twitterers, as she noted in thanking Mathew Ingram, communities editor at the Globe and Mail, one of Canada’s Twittering journalism experts. I hope Preston also seeks advice from Times staffers Nicholas Kristof and David Pogue, two Twitterers I enjoy.
• Preston converses with her tweeps, asking questions to seek clarification or elaboration (sometimes necessary with the 140-character limit).
• She shows enthusiasm. I’d like to see more sense of humor, though that might be a bit of a challenge to the very serious culture of the New York Times (but it is the culture of social media). (Kristof shows some humor in his tweets, another reason for Preston to study his style and discuss his approach with him.)
• She doesn’t regard social media as a 9-to-5 job. That tweet thanking Ingram was one of three she posted yesterday evening fairly late.

I hope Preston will lead a vigorous (and public) discussion of how the Times should use social media and what are Times standards regarding opinion, when and how to mix personal with public, etc.

Times ethical issues are aired publicly (Public Editor Clark Hoyt’s column Sunday examined issues dealing with perhaps the two biggest Times superstars, Maureen Dowd and Thomas Friedman). One of the greatest injustices in journalism ethics in recent years was that Rick Bragg was smeared in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal with a matter that was simply a case of changing standards. Bragg followed a common procedure of using stringers and got pilloried when the standard changed beneath him. We don’t want to see a quality Times journalist smeared by changing or unclear standards regarding social media.

I’m glad the New York Times is venturing into social media in such a public way. I hope @NYT_JenPreston and her colleagues share some valuable lessons with the rest of the industry as they are learning.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Nieman Journalism Lab: NYTimes appoints Jennifer Preston as social media editor (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
• Gazing into the Twitterverse (briansolis.com)
• How to Show The Value of Twitter In 2 Minutes or Less (adamhcohen.com)

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Journalists shouldn’t hide behind a mask

I’ll use a shortened version of this for my Monday column in The Gazette:

Mixing the personal with the professional has always been uncomfortable territory for journalists and especially for journalists’ bosses. Voicing opinions is another touchy area.

The Wall Street Journal weighed in on both matters last week with a resounding “no” to staff members who might be tempted to do either in their use of social media.

“Business and pleasure should not be mixed on services like Twitter,” a Dow Jones email guiding staff use of social media warned. The message also admonished staff: “Sharing your personal opinions, as well as expressing partisan political views … could open us to criticism that we have biases.”

The point of both rules seems to be to hide the person you are, as though reporting were a plastic Mardi Gras mask you could hold in front of your face and fool unsuspecting readers.

I was one of several bloggers and Twitterers during the past week who criticized the guidelines on various counts. I don’t want to re-plow that ground here, but I do want to address – and debunk – the notion that journalists can or should hide our humanity.

The fact is that the Wall Street Journal (as well as The Gazette and any journalism organization) already is open to criticism about biases. Readers attribute bias to us based on their own biases and based on their understanding of the fact that journalists are human and that all humans have biases.

Of course, we should maintain neutrality about topics we cover. But, as I have written here before, humanity actually helps us be better journalists. And I believe it can help build the credibility of our reporting. I will illustrate with three stories, one from the Wall Street Journal:

In the early 1990s, I was editor of the Minot Daily News (and wrote a weekly column) and my wife, Mimi, was a columnist for News. When she first started writing a column in Shawnee, Kan., before we moved to Minot, I advised Mimi that it was better to reveal occasional personal glimpses while writing about the community, and have the readers wanting to know you better, than to write frequently about yourself and have the readers feel they were getting too much personal information.

Mimi has never felt bound by my advice and pretty much ignored this counsel. She did write frequently about the community, but also dealt with our family life and her personal interests a lot (sometimes to the mild embarrassment of the husband and sons who became characters in her stories). My editor’s column did give occasional personal glimpses, but mostly wrote about lofty issues of journalism, the community or the world.

When I was fired, the publisher also dropped Mimi’s column. My firing drew some mild criticism from readers, but they were outraged to lose Mimi’s column. Four other North Dakota newspapers, whose editors were loyal readers, quickly picked up her column. Even as a columnist, I spent too much of my time behind that Mardi Gras mask, while Mimi was making a personal connection.

I covered religion for the Des Moines Register a decade ago. In addition to writing news stories, I wrote a column about faith, frequently expressing opinions or dealing with my own faith and experiences. People I interviewed frequently asked about my own faith and I answered candidly. I later learned from other religion writers that many are reluctant to discuss their own faith with people they cover and recoil at the thought of writing anything personal or opinionated.

I also wrote a lot about religion when I was at the Omaha World-Herald, but I didn’t write a column there. I’m quite sure I was accused more often of biased coverage (sometimes by people who inferred inaccurately about my own faith or opinions) in Omaha, where no one actually knew anything about my opinions or personal perspectives, than I was in Des Moines. When people knew we held different opinions or came from different faiths, I frequently heard appreciation for my fair and unbiased coverage.

Now for the Wall Street Journal example: In 2004, Farnaz Fassihi, a reporter in the Journal’s Baghdad bureau, sent an email to friends about her life in Baghdad. “Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under virtual house arrest,” she started. What followed was detailed, well-written and candid, describing how difficult and dangerous work and life in Baghdad were then, one of the most chaotic times of the war in Iraq.

Someone posted the email online and it became an immediate sensation. Critics of the Journal questioned how she could continue reporting on the war. But others noted that the blunt assessment gave a more accurate account of life in Baghdad than the stories she wrote behind her mask for the Journal’s news columns.

Journalists are people. We can acknowledge our humanity and still uphold the principles of accuracy, independence and fairness. Sometimes showing our humanity helps build our credibility. People stop wondering who that is behind the mask.

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More on newspapers’ social media rules: NY Times, Washington Post, etc.

Update: Gina M. Chen blogged about the New York Times and Washington Post social media rules, providing thoughtful insight on both. “Newspapers are really, really afraid of readers, sources, everyone. Good grief.”

And I’m especially pleased with Jamie Kelly’s simple, brief advice on social media use by journalists: Identify yourself and don’t endanger your reputation.

No time for extensive new commentary, but I have to note that the New York Times guidelines for staff on social media are more enlightened than the Wall Street Journal’s. But isn’t it comical (and a little pathetic) to see an organization that stands for openness in the rest of the world whining about tweets from a newsroom meeting? Note to Gazette staffers: You can tweet anything I say in any staff meeting.

Joe Strupp of Editor & Publisher has rounded up more newsroom policies/guidelines/rules/advice on using Twitter and other social media.  The Washington Post’s don’t-embarrass-us approach recognizes that rigid rules aren’t the way to handle social media.

Patrick Thornton of BeatBlogging wrote one of the most scathing and insightful shots I’ve seen at the Wall Street Journal approach. Thornton (who linked to my first post on the topic) wrote:

The policy seems better fit for a different era and a different medium. The policy repeatedly tells employees to “consult your editor” when using social media. The Journal appears to be operating in the same top-down, slow, patriarchal manner of newspapers of old, instead of the open and nimble ethos of social media.

James Poniewozik of Time illustrates the absurdity of the WSJ rules by showing how many of them he would be in violation of (in all cases by doing things I would regard as good journalism or harmless fun).

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A response from the Wall Street Journal

As punishment, I guess, for posting that I was too busy to continue this discussion (or perhaps because I wished a flight delay on Jeff Jarvis), I got a response from the Wall Street Journal right after I posted my last update in a series of posts that started last night.

I had emailed editors Alix Freedman and Karen Pensiero, asking them to respond to the earlier posts. You won’t understand his response unless you have read the post about my conversation last month with Pensiero. The response came from Robert H. Christie, vice president, communications, at Dow Jones & Co. (and yes, it does say something about the WSJ culture that a blogger’s question to an editor is answered by a PR person):

While Ms. Pensiero found it interesting to hear what others in the industry had to say about Twitter during your April 2009 webinar, the Journal had at that time already written and distributed its own online ethics guidelines, building upon the journalistic ethics we’ve practiced for years. Those online guidelines were sent to staffers in October 2008. (In a response to a question from me, Christie said the guidelines “were released in October and updated a few days ago.”)

The phone call from Ms. Pensiero was by no means a consultation. Ms. Pensiero called you after the webinar because she disagreed with your contention that it was a good idea to let a reporter break news on Twitter rather than on his employer’s website, and she wanted to discuss it further. (The example you had used in your webinar was a Wichita reporter tweeting news from a courtroom with no link back to his employer’s web site.)

I appreciate the clarification from the WSJ. I do recall that Pensiero was concerned about Ron Sylvester‘s Twitter trial coverage for the Wichita Eagle. I think that the discussion became broader than that and I remember her saying the Journal was concerned about staff use of social media, but if the WSJ guidelines came out in October, I had no input.

Christie did not say whether Freedman or Pensiero use Twitter (as noted before, I couldn’t find either of them on Twitter). Christie also sent me a copy of Freedman’s email to the staff, which follows (with my strong approval that the Journal is discussing these issues with the staff, even if I am critical of the conclusions):

Colleagues:

The use of social and business networking sites by Journal reporters and editors is becoming more commonplace, and we’re eager to have our journalists participate in our own network, the new Journal Community (wsj.com/community). It’s a powerful way to interact with readers, get story ideas and participate in discussions about our interests.

You’ll soon hear more from our WSJ.com colleagues regarding opportunities to participate in Journal Community. Some recommended activities include creating discussion groups for readers in your coverage area (wsj.com/community/groups), linking to an article you wrote and presenting the questions that it raises. You may also want to respond to a reader’s comment on your article or answer readers’ questions by citing information from your reporting or linking to an online source. If the subject is unrelated to your beat and more leisure or hobby-oriented, you can express your opinions more directly.

As we embark on this new service to readers, I’d like to remind you of some familiar ground rules, as well note some new ones that should guide all News Department employees’ actions online, whether in Journal Community or in social-networking, e-email, personal blogs, or other sites outside Dow Jones.

All postings in Journal Community that may be controversial or that deal with sensitive subjects need to be cleared with your editor before posting.

• Never misrepresent yourself using a false name when you’re acting on behalf of the Journal. When soliciting information from readers and interview subjects you must identify yourself as a Journal reporter and be tonally neutral in your questions.
• Base all comments posted in your role as a Journal employee in the facts, drawing from and citing your reporting when appropriate. Sharing your personal opinions, as well as expressing partisan political views, whether in Journal Community or on the larger Web, could open us to criticism that we have biases and could make a reporter ineligible to cover topics in the future for the Journal.
• Don’t recruit friends or family to promote or defend your work.
• Consult your editor before “connecting” to or “friending” reporting contacts who may need to be treated as a confidential sources. Openly “friending” sources is akin to publicly publishing your Rolodex.
• Let our coverage speak for itself, and don’t detail how an article was reported, written or edited.
• Don’t disparage the work of colleagues or competitors or aggressively promote your coverage.
• Avoid giving highly-tailored, specific advice to any individual. Phrases such as “Travel agents are saying the best deals are X and Y…” are acceptable while counseling a reader “You should choose X…” is not. Giving generalized advice is the best way to avoid legal claims by readers.
• Don’t engage in any rude dialogue with those who may challenge your work – no matter how rude or provocative they may seem.

Much of this is new territory, so please speak with your editor, the on-line team or me as questions arise.

Allbest,

Alix M. Freedman

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More on Wall Street Journal and social media

Update: I’m too busy to add the exchange between Jeff Jarvis and Tim O’Brien of the New York Times or update responses from Alan Murray, but I recommend following them if you’re interested in this issue. I may add the continuing exchange later.

For now I will add and endorse this view from John Robinson, editor of the News & Record in Greensboro, N.C., and one of the most Twitter-savvy (and web-savvy) editors in the business: ”Twitter rules: I trust the staff to report the news. Shouldn’t I trust them enough to tweet? Is twitter that much harder than reporting?”

Update on the Wall Street Journal and its social media rules, which I’ve addressed in two previous posts:

WSJ Deputy Managing Editor and Executive Editor Online (now there’s a title!) Alan Murray and Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do? (highly recommended reading) are having an interesting exchange about the rules on Twitter:

Jarvis fired the first salvo: Somebody at The Wall Street Journal should tell Sherman to stop the Wayback Machine before it’s too late.

Murray responded: What’s your beef today, Jeff?

Jarvis: the wsj twitter and interactivity rules that cut off openness & collaboration, since you asked.

Murray: We’re encouraging people to use Twitter and Facebook. Just encouraging them to use some common sense when they do.

Jarvis:  Yes but isn’t the 1 rule: Don’t be stupid? Telling them not to discuss ongoing stories cuts off collaboration. Nose/spite/face

At this point, Murray either stopped firing (perhaps inhibited by the rule about letting coverage speak for itself (does that apply to rules that don’t speak very well for themselves?) or the don’t engage in “impolite dialogue” (though this is polite, just pointed, in my view) rule. Or maybe his fire has just been delayed (perhaps checking with an editor because it’s controversial?). But Jarvis had more to say: There’s a new definition of common sense.

And more: Why not ask twitterers – starting with your own – to suggest common-sense rules?

Still more (140-character limit per tweet, you know): Wouldn’t the better memo have been to brainstorm all the new ways to do journalism via Twitter & Facebook – openly?

Then Jarvis linked to some comments on his blog: Another good response to WSJ’s Twitternoia: http://bit.ly/12X9HU

Nothing more from Murray, but Jarvis is waiting out an air-traffic delay, so he might not be finished. (No answer yet to my emails to WSJ editors inviting comment.)

This just in: No sooner did I write that and post than Murray returned tweet: I’m wondering: Have you read the memo? What part of it do you find so objectionable?

And Jarvis tweeted right back: Come on, Alan. Of course, I’ve read the memo. I blogged about it. http://bit.ly/3lKMXy (I think you just violated your rule)

Will update if the exchange continues. No offense, Jeff, but I’m hoping for a bit more of a flight delay.

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Whoops! I forgot I was consulted by the Wall Street Journal about use of social media

Memory can be a funny thing. I banged out my post on the Wall Street Journal’s rules on social media last night simply as a bystander reading about the new Dow Jones policy on social media and commenting.

Then this morning, as I was reading some other blogs on the subject and updating my original post, I realized that I might have been consulted in developing the rules. Whoops! Probably should have disclosed that.

Karen Pensiero, an assistant managing editor at the Wall Street Journal, participated in my April 7 webinar for the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Leading Your Staff into the Twitterverse. We had a follow-up discussion in which she asked me several questions about how journalists should use Twitter. I didn’t take notes and it’s been more than a month, so I won’t pretend that I remember what her exact concerns were or what my answers were. I can’t recall how long the phone call was, and I did not charge any kind of consulting fee, but I should acknowledge that I was consulted.

Below is what I said in my handout for that webinar about ethics and using Twitter (with my current comments about the WSJ policy and how they have applied what I said in italics). That and my slides from the webinar should reflect pretty closely any contribution I might have made to the considerations that led to the new policy.

I also should add that I could not find Pensiero using Twitter’s “find people” function. So, while I can credit her with some research into the topic, I don’t see that she has first-hand experience. I have emailed Pensiero, inviting comment. Update: The Journal responded.

Ethical issues

As you and your staff start using Twitter (and other social networks), keep journalism ethics in mind. The principles of journalism ethics – seek the truth and report it; minimize harm; act independently; be accountable – don’t change, but social networks present unfamiliar circumstances for making ethical decisions. Some matters to consider and discuss with your staff:

• Identification. Discuss with your staff how they identify themselves on Twitter. My view is that if journalists might ever use a profile professionally, they should identify themselves by name, position and affiliation. As I’ve said, I heartily approve of the WSJ’s strong position on identification.
• Personal vs. professional. Decide whether you should maintain separate personal and professional Twitter accounts. Some editors do and I respect their decisions. I don’t keep separate accounts. My view is that we need to learn how to use social media tools the way the world uses them and lots of people mix the personal and professional when using social media. So I use my Twitter account for personal and professional communications, but I do so knowing that people are always viewing me as the leader of the content operation of Gazette Communications. So I always conduct myself professionally on Twitter, even if it’s a more casual, personal and fun version of professional conduct than I’m used to. Personal communication helps build the connections that make Twitter a strong form of community connection. I don’t think I ever got more responses from tweeps than when I tweeted about my nephew’s leukemia treatment. The Journal decided not to allow mixing personal with business. As I said, I respect that decision but disagree. I should note, though, that if you don’t want people doing that, you do need to be explicit, because WSJ staffers have been mixing personal and business in their tweets.
• Verification. Reporters should be as careful and skeptical about facts they learn and contacts they make through Twitter as they would be about facts or contacts encountered elsewhere. The WSJ rules did not address this.
• Language. The language of Twitter can get pretty casual and foul, with abbreviations such as WTF and BS thrown around casually. Discuss with your staff how they should conduct themselves on Twitter. The WSJ did advise against “impolite dialogue” with people challenging your work.
• Opinions. The Twitterverse can be pretty opinionated. Discuss with staff whether opinions are acceptable in their tweets and whether any particular topics might be off-limits for opinionated tweets. I think the WSJ was a little heavy-handed on limiting staff members’ expression in social media, but I do think that it’s appropriate to admonish reporters about expressing opinions about topics they cover or might cover.

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Thoughts on Wall Street Journal’s rules for staff using social media

If you’re reading this post, please also read my accompanying post, Whoops! I forgot I was consulted by the Wall Street Journal about use of social media.

I commend the Wall Street Journal and parent company Dow Jones for providing guidance to its journalists in the use of social networks. I think, though, that some of the guidelines reflect a lack of understanding about social media.

In fact, I question whether the editor(s) who wrote and approved the rules have ever used Twitter, beyond that initial “trying out Twitter” tweet. Deputy Managing Editor Alix Freedman, who sent the rules to the staff using the imperial “we”, can’t be found under that name using Twitter’s “find people” search. (I have asked Freedman in an email if she uses Twitter and have offered her an opportunity to comment.)

Here are the guidelines, as reported by Editor and Publisher’s Joe Strupp, with my commentary provided in italics:

* Never misrepresent yourself using a false name when you’re acting on behalf of your Dow Jones publication or service. When soliciting information from readers and interview subjects you must identify yourself as a reporter for the Journal, Newswires or MarketWatch and be tonally neutral in your questions. Good guideline, but I would add that any journalist’s profile should specifically identify your role and affiliation.
* Base all comments posted in your role as a Dow Jones employee in the facts, drawing from and citing your reporting when appropriate. Sharing your personal opinions, as well as expressing partisan political views, whether on Dow Jones sites or on the larger Web, could open us to criticism that we have biases and could make a reporter ineligible to cover topics in the future for Dow Jones. You should address whether staff members should be able to express opinions about issues in the news media and social media. I think they should. As journalists, we benefit by vigorous discussion of such issues. That discussion is going on in the social media and WSJ voices should be heard.
* Don’t recruit friends or family to promote or defend your work. Absolutely.
* Consult your editor before “connecting” to or “friending” any reporting contacts who may need to be treated as confidential sources. Openly “friending” sources is akin to publicly publishing your Rolodex. A reporter’s Facebook profile might want to stipulate (if you are using Facebook professionally) that the connections there are personal and not really friends. You should have the same consultation with the source, too. And followers aren’t disciples. Just note somewhere in the WSJ policy that journalists should follow people on their beats and that it doesn’t imply any relationship any more complicated than watchdog. And oh yeah, we use confidential sources way too much. Talk them into going on the record.
* Let our coverage speak for itself, and don’t detail how an article was reported, written or edited. This is nonsense. Transparency is the way of the web and credibility is journalism’s most important asset. The more we let the public know about how we work (and how hard we strive for accuracy and fairness) the better. Unless you don’t.
* Don’t discuss articles that haven’t been published, meetings you’ve attended or plan to attend with staff or sources, or interviews that you’ve conducted. See above. Crowdsource. Tell followers what you’re doing and ask them to tell you what they know. You’ll improve your journalism, making it more accurate and more interactive.
* Don’t disparage the work of colleagues or competitors or aggressively promote your coverage. But tweet (or post) links when you have new content. And don’t back away from explaining differences if the public asks why you did or didn’t report something differently from colleagues or competitors.
* Don’t engage in any impolite dialogue with those who may challenge your work — no matter how rude or provocative they may seem. Good advice. But stand by your work (when you’re right).
* Avoid giving highly-tailored, specific advice to any individual on Dow Jones sites. Phrases such as “Travel agents are saying the best deals are X and Y…” are acceptable while counseling a reader “You should choose X…” is not. Giving generalized advice is the best approach. No problem here.
* All postings on Dow Jones sites that may be controversial or that deal with sensitive subjects need to be cleared with your editor before posting. The social media world is not the heavily edited print Wall Street Journal. I think a “use good judgment” advice here would be more appropriate than “all postings … need to be cleared with your editor.”
* Business and pleasure should not be mixed on services like Twitter. Common sense should prevail, but if you are in doubt about the appropriateness of a Tweet or posting, discuss it with your editor before sending. This is an approach that ensures that you will never fully understand “services like Twitter” (as if there were other services like Twitter). Most of the Twitter world mixes business with pleasure. Building walls means you won’t understand how Twitter works. I’d say it’s better to encourage mixing business and personal content in Twitter, but admonish staff to keep in mind that you represent your publication and behave professionally at all times. For instance, I don’t see any problem with my whining about a flight delay as long as I’m not cursing or otherwise commenting inappropriately.

For a similar analysis of the rules, see Gina M. Chen’s Save the Media blog. Other comments:

• Owen Thomas on Gawker documented with screen shots of tweets how WSJ staffers have been breaking the rules (and the examples illustrate how ridiculous the rules are, because they are pretty mild tweets).
• Chris Cadelago calls the rules unreasonable, noting: “For most reporters, especially those dubbed ‘net natives’ by Journal owner Rupert Murdoch, it has become impossible not to mix our lives online with our lives off. Both take place in and out of the office.”
• Jeff Jarvis has a brief post, noting how badly the WSJ is missing the point.
• Mathew Ingram, writing at the Nieman Journalism Lab, agreed with Jarvis, noting that the WSJ failed to understand Twitter’s “inherently personal” nature.
• Tameka Kee in paidcontent doesn’t comment on the wisdom of the actual rules, but notes that their existence illustrates “how social media has reshaped the business of reporting news.”

For more discussion, see my previous post (and workshop handout) journalism ethics and social networks.

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