WE have all heard the rhetoric about how Twitter is revolutionising the dissemination of news and information from people to people and from country to country in an unprecedented way. It has put power into the hands of the people, ordinary citizens, to spread breaking news before journalists.
But there is an intangible line between tweets spreading news and that of opinion. But of course journalists have opinions too. When journalist Guy Adams from the British news organisation, The Independent, tweeted his opinion on the American network NBC his Twitter account was hastily suspended.
The tweet that initiated the automatic suspension of Mr Adams’ account was:
"The man responsible for NBC pretending the Olympics haven't started yet is Gary Zenkel. Tell him what u think!" which then went on to provide Mr Zenkel's corporate email address.
According to The Independent the tweets were in violation of Twitter’s terms of use, where individual's private information such as private email address, physical address, telephone number, or financial documents should not be publicised.
Some of his other tweets loudly voiced his personal view of NBC...
"America's left coast forced to watch Olympic ceremony on SIX HOUR time delay. Disgusting money-grabbing by @NBColympics."
"I have 1000 channels on my TV. Not one will be showing the Olympics opening ceremony live. Because NBC are utter, utter bastards."
Twitter is called social media. But as noted in the week one lecture of Online Journalism professional journalists are now encouraged, if not mandatorily required, to possess Twitter accounts. AP now includes guidelines on how journalists are to interact, on a professional level, on and with social media.
So if journalists are to use social networking sites, such as Twitter, as a part of their job as journalists to share and consume news, then is it really a place for bias opinion?
Should it just be left to share subjective, unopinionated news? The very elements that make up a journalist’s role...
Or should journalists be encouraged to possess a professional Twitter account to use for journalistic purposes only, such as simply sharing and consuming subjective news information, and have a separate private account where they can freely express their personal and opinionated ideas?
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VIDEO: Interview between Shira Lazar, blogger and Co-Founder of Whats Trending.com and journalist Guy Adams from The Independent.
