Stricter Social Media Rules for WSJ

An article by Ayelet Noff    4 Comments

If the mere thought of “big brother” watching you drives you mad, then you surely wouldn’t want to be a Wall Street Journalist right now. The Social Media rules for WSJ have just been revised into a much more strict affair. Here are a few that have drawn cause for discussion:

1) Consult your editor before “connecting” to or “friending” any reporting contacts who may need to be treated as confidential sources. Openly “friending” sources is akin to publicly publishing your Rolodex.

2) Let our coverage speak for itself, and don’t detail how an article was reported, written or edited.

3) Don’t discuss articles that haven’t been published, meetings you’ve attended or plan to attend with staff or sources, or interviews that you’ve conducted.

4) Business and pleasure should not be mixed on services like Twitter. Common sense should prevail, but if you are in doubt about the appropriateness of a Tweet or posting, discuss it with your editor before sending.

Contracted Dow Jones site writer, Peter Kafka, responded to these rules by basically stating that he didn’t “have a problem with the bulk of this stuff… big organizations like to spell this stuff out, for both management and legal reasons. Nature of the beast.” Glad you don’t mind Peter!

Image Credit: lis_glass