BBC’s take on social networks

By Bryan, on March 24th, 2008

Alfred Hermida spotlights the BBC’s recently released guidelines (part 1 and part 2) on the use of social networks by BBC staffers. Some good reading there, although Alfred notes that the BBC hasn’t yet addressed the elephant in the room.

What appears missing from these guidelines on the use of social networking sites by journalists. This has been in the news recently due to the Spitzer scandal, when the media plundered the MySpace profile of Ashley Alexandra Dupre for her photos.

The BBC has been debating the ethics of taking material from social networking site. But these guidelines fail to tackle this area

One thing the guidelines do emphasize is the importance of respecting the social network and not neglecting the sites once you create a presence. I’ve often encouraged college media to engage in social networks, but such efforts have to be a continuing thing – you can’t just set up a profile and let it sit there. This is a good chance for a news outlet to engage a staffer as “community editor” or something like that – to keep in contact with these networks.