AP offers some good social media advice, but not enough

You may have read this from me before about other news organizations: The Associated Press social media guidelines raise important issues but stop short of providing the excellent advice I would hope for from the AP.

I won’t go into chapter and verse on the AP guidelines. They are an improvement on the fear-laden guidelines I have criticized from the American Society of News Editors (like ASNE, AP’s policy is a pdf, an odd choice), Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times. But they show too many glimpses of fear for me to support them.

The guidelines prompted enough internal questions that a managing editor, Lou Ferrara, sent out a memo saying the release of the guidelines was “coincidental” with the departure of Lauren McCullough as audience and engagement manager (she’s going to Breaking News).

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Simple guidance on social media: What you should do, not prohibitions

Mathew Ingram of GigaOm has nailed the most common problem with newsroom social media policies:

One of the biggest flaws of most policies is that they spend so much time talking about how bad social media is for the profession, and so little time talking about what makes it useful, or how to approach it as a positive tool for journalism.

I have written extensively here about newsroom social media policies, often making similar points. So I’ll praise and encourage you to read Mathew’s advice about what you should do:

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The Guardian shows newsrooms how to guide digital journalists

I have criticized other news organizations’ policies relating to social media and other digital journalism issues frequently in this blog:

• Wall Street Journal
• Washington Post
• New York Times
• Los Angeles Times

Time to lavish some praise on a news organization for it sensible approach. The Guardian shows why it is a leader in social media and digital journalism with its guidelines for blogging and commenting by journalists.

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