Social Networks and the Press
Increasingly journalists rely upon social networking sites for content when a major story breaks. But what are the principles that should govern the journalistic use of content gathered from personal profiles on Bebo, Facebook Myspace etc? My colleague Robin Hamman has been taking a look at the issues on his personal blog here and for the PM programme so have I.
Personal social network profiles or images taken from those profiles have been a factor in the reporting of the killing of Meredith Kercher, the scandal surrounding Derek Conway MP and even the biography of Bilawal Bhutto. Now with the suspected suicides in Bridgend we learn, via local MP's and AM's, of concern about the use of content from social media in that case. In reference to social network images used of some of the young people who died, Carwyn Jones AM said, "It does raise questions of the sensitivity of publishing those photographs for the world to see". Local MP, Madeleine Moon told PM she had even received complaints (which she stressed she could not substantiate) of journalists pretending to be on-line friends of local young people in order to obtain quotes.
Not linked to any specific case, the general issue of journalists use of social network content is something the Press Complaints Commission is currently looking at, as they embark on a major process of consultation. In the interview below their Director Tim Toulmin talks about what steps the PCC is taking to look at the issue and to clarify where the boundaries should lie governing the activities of the press in this area.
In the interview Toulmin indicates the matter is one of degree: journalists do have a rights to use publicly accessible content and the public have responsibilities when they post it, but there is value in establishing boundaries which can guide the press in the ethical use of this content.
We might add to the above one other consideration to the ethical and professional ones outlined in the case. The British Journal of Photography looks at the copyright issues, and concludes that publication of images on social networks does not automatically grant rights to republish photographs. A test case may indeed render some of the ethical questions over the use of images redundant if the owners of images assert their image-rights.
A closing caveat: as blogger Jeff Jarvis was at pains to point out in an unbroadcast interview, social media offer many new opportunities for collaborative journalism which bring the public and the press closer together, as well as new versions of what are essentially old journalistic problems of privacy and press intrusion. On iPM we hope we've also shown that collaborative journalism through social media can be pretty productive. The web is a wonderful tool for journalists, it is up to us, collectively, to use it an ethical manner.
N.B. Steve Herrmann of BBC NewsOnline has published our own guidance here
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