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Ethical newsgathering on social media
- 1. ETHICAL NEWSGATHERING ON SOCIAL MEDIA @rayrod / #newsrw RACHEL RODRIGUEZ / @rayrod
- 2. 2 •Make sure they’re OK •Don’t encourage risk-taking BE HUMAN @rayrod / #newsrw
- 3. 3 •Talk to them •Get the backstory •Look at other sources •Check out the images/video VERIFY @rayrod / #newsrw
- 4. 4 •…From the right person •In a way they understand ASK PERMISSION @rayrod / #newsrw
- 5. 5 •Always (almost) •How they want to be credited •Unless anonymity is needed CREDIT @rayrod / #newsrw
- 6. 6 •Add context for the audience •Be up-front about verification •Consider autoplay and graphic content BE TRANSPARENT @rayrod / #newsrw
- 7. 7 •Say thanks •Bring content back to community that created it CLOSE THE LOOP @rayrod / #newsrw
- 8. 8 •Entire newsroom should understand social •Provide support for staff who engage on social TRAIN @rayrod / #newsrw
- 9. 9 ETHICAL NEWSGATHERING ON SOCIAL MEDIA •Be human •Verify •Ask permission •Credit •Be transparent •Close the loop •Train your staff @rayrod / #newsrw
Editor's Notes
- I’ve put this first because in the early days of social media newsgathering, it was frequently forgotten. You can’t let the pursuit of the incredible footage get in the way of humanity. It’s also always been really important to us at CNN to go about it in a way that makes people understand how much we value their contributions. So. If someone is in a dangerous situation, we start every conversation by making sure they’re OK. Because if they’re not, we’re in a place where we can call the police etc. even if they can’t. We also have to make sure we’re not asking them to take risks, even unintentionally. If we have an ongoing situation, we’ll never ask them to try to get more photos or similar. And sometimes you have to be careful about this in a subtle way – for example, if we show footage that was really dangerous or illegal to get, that might encourage other people to do the same, and we don’t want that. We have to remember that these people aren’t professional journalists, so sometimes we have to provide some guidance as the professionals in this situation.
- Some websites are happy to publish stories based on a single Facebook or Twitter post. That’s not us. People come to us to make sense of all the stuff they see on social and verify whether it’s true. So for us, this is really the key thing. If at all possible, we have a conversation with every person whose story or footage we want to use. We ask a lot of questions and get the backstory – it helps with verification and it’s just better storytelling rather than duplicating every other article that’s been written. For example, do you remember the gorilla that was killed at the Cincinnati Zoo? We found the guy who originally named him on Facebook. Turns out, he had some video of the gorilla as a baby, and we combined that footage with an opinion piece we got him to write for a really powerful, original angle instead of doing like the 20th piece on the social media outrage. It was our best performing piece on Facebook that week. We bring in our experts and look at other sources, on and off social media, to verify what we’re seeing. And we check things like the metadata on photos to make sure they’re legit.
- We never want to just take stuff. It’s bad journalism, and even though sometimes it can be justified under fair use, we feel that best practice is always to talk to the submitter before using material. You’re limited in terms of what you can do with fair used material, anyway. For example, after the attack in Istanbul, we were able to quickly get user-generated eyewitness video up on our Facebook pages because we instantly reached out and asked permission from the user. We couldn’t have done that with fair use, because fair use doesn’t allow for taking a whole work and posting it on social. But because we had permission, we could distribute the video that way and make sure that many more people saw it. The first step in getting permission is to make sure you’re talking to the right person – just because someone posted something on Twitter doesn’t mean it was theirs to post. Sometimes you’ve got to do a little digging to find the original source. You also have to make sure you’re using language they understand. The language a lot of journos get from their legal departments includes stuff like “in perpetuity” and “across all platforms” – what non-lawyer, non-journo knows what that means? Especially if English is their second language! We’ve worked carefully with our rights department and legal to make sure we use language that covers us legally while still being clear for the person we’re talking to.
- If we’re not thanking the users for their contribution, they’re certainly not going to want to help us out next time they see breaking news. So credit is key. It’s important to talk to people about how they want to be credited – some will want their full name, others maybe want their Instagram handle so people can see their other photos and follow them. The only time we wouldn’t credit someone is if anonymity is needed for safety reasons. And this can be another time when we need to call back on our professional expertise, because a user won’t always know that giving their name could put them at risk. I’m thinking of the 2009 protests after the election in Iran – some people who shared their photos with us asked to be anonymous, some didn’t. But the ones who didn’t, what they didn’t know because things were so crazy there, but we did know, was that the government was using social media posts to find protesters and arrest them. So at that point we would step in and say, look, we know you said you’re fine with your name being used, but we’re going to keep you anonymous and here’s why.
- Transparency is key with social newsgathering, because audiences are very sceptical. News organizations don’t like saying “we don’t know” – but with stuff sourced from social, it’s necessary and OK to do that sometimes, and the audience doesn’t hold it against you. They appreciate the transparency and it builds trust. So when we use something sourced from social, we’re always careful to put it in context – here’s all the information we know about this, here’s why it matters, and here’s what we don’t know, too. You’ve got to be up-front about whether you’ve verified something or not – it’s not OK to spread rumors. You also need to be transparent about the content of a video, because when you’re sharing stuff on social, it autoplays. So we have to think very carefully about what kinds of things we’ll share. The Philando Castile video, for example – that’s never something we would just reshare to our page for a variety of reasons, but one is because we want our users to have the choice to view something graphic or not. So if we’ve got a video like that, we’ll put a long warning at the front so that people have time to stop it if they don’t want to see it. We’ll blur if necessary. And we’ll put a warning in the text to tell viewers what they’re choosing to watch.
- This step so often gets skipped, but it can go a long way in terms of building loyalty. When people give you permission to use their footage – say thanks. Tell them what you did with it. Send them a link or a clip of a segment. It sounds super-simple, but they really appreciate it when we show them how much we value their contribution. And then – this sounds like a no-brainer, but people forget – share that content back with the community that created it. So, for example, if you did a story around a hashtag that was trending on twitter, you need to then post it on your twitter with that hashtag. Maybe tag some of the contributors. Make sure the audience that created the original content sees what you’ve done with it.
- We have a dedicated team for social newsgathering, but all staff who touch social are trained – including the whole newsgathering operation. During a breaking story, everyone jumps in, so it’s important that they all understand. Equally important is providing support for staff. A lot can go wrong on social. You get trolled, you see a disturbing unedited video. We make sure people understand that the moment something feels wrong, they stop and bring it to us so that we can help them through a tough situation.