Sky News Imposes Some Challenging Twitter Rules for Its Journalists
The U.K.-based Sky News is out with new guidelines for its journalists on Twitter, and they sound pretty limiting: Sky employees can no longer retweet news from other outlets or items unrelated to their work or their beat. Unsurprisingly, the reporters are unhappy about these rules according to The Guardian, which printed excerpts of the e-mailed guidelines on Tuesday:
So, to reiterate, don't tweet when it is not a story to which you have been assigned or a beat which you work.
Where a story has been Tweeted by a Sky News journalist who is assigned to the story it is fine, desirable in fact, that it is retweeted by other Sky News staff.
Do not retweet information posted by other journalists or people on Twitter. Such information could be wrong and has not been through the Sky News editorial process.
Reporters for Sky News, which is a part of Rupert Murdoch's News International, are also expected to clear breaking news with their editors before tweeting about it. Twitter is a platform that rewards speed and interaction. Some reporters get around the "unvetted" nature of retweets with a note in their bios reminding followers that "retweets are not endorsements," but that doesn't appears to be enough for Sky News editors.
