The Associated Press is adopting a stringent social-networking policy for its employees, informing them to police their Facebook profiles “to make sure material posted by others doesn’t violate AP standards," says a WIRED report.
The policy comes weeks after an AP reporter, Richard Richtmyer, was reprimanded for posting a comment to his own Facebook profile criticizing the Sacramento-based newspaper chain McClatchy, whose stock has become nearly worthless after a string of costly acquisitions.
Excerpts: [Link]
“We all have a stake in upholding the AP’s reputation for fairness and impartiality, which has been one of our chief assets for more than 160 years,” Kristin Gazlay, an AP vice president, wrote Thursday to the news agency’s 4,000 employees.
The AP’s social-networking policy comes as the media at large begins adopting Facebook and Twitter guidelines during a time of explosive growth in online social media. The News Media Guild, representing about 1,000 AP journalists, says the AP’s policy is perhaps the most restrictive the union has seen.
“I am unaware of anything else like that,” Tony Winton, the guild’s president, said in a telephone interview. “Parts of the policy seem to be snuffing out peoples’ First Amendment rights of expression by a company that wraps itself in the First Amendment.”
