{"id":736,"date":"2013-10-24T11:00:43","date_gmt":"2013-10-24T15:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/reporting\/?p=736"},"modified":"2013-10-24T15:02:13","modified_gmt":"2013-10-24T19:02:13","slug":"is-twitter-fair-game-for-reporters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/reporting\/is-twitter-fair-game-for-reporters\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Twitter fair game for reporters?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By REBECCA COHEN<\/p>\n

In a world where it is normal to know what a complete stranger is doing at any given time, thanks to social media, where do we draw the line with reporters?<\/p>\n

If Hilary Clinton tweets about her latest trip to Hawaii, it is only fair that news sites have access to it — as the whole world is watching what she does. But, for the average Joe, is it ethical for reporters to share our posts in stories on, for example, underage drinking?<\/p>\n

Say high school senior John Smith tweets, “So Drunk!” Is it okay for a reporter to quote Smith in his or her story?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
After all, Smith did decide to share his business with the whole world by broadcasting it on social media.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Social media are, by definition, web sites that are used by a large group of people to share information. Therefore, the very purpose of Smith’s post is to share with a large group of people that he is “So Drunk!” However, having his underage intoxication shared with the entire world was probably not Smith’s original intention upon writing this post.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
So, by putting it in a news story about underage drinking, it is taking it out of its original context, and could be judged as unethical.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
On the other hand, let’s say a student at the University of Miami shares his or her views on ObamaCare.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
It is fair to think that, because these tweets are being put on social media, the user who posted them wants them to be shared.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
If a reporter is writing a story about students for Obama, this tweet would fit perfectly into his or her story. Likely the purpose of this post was to have it referenced to and shared further.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
In this situation, it could be viewed as ethical to feature it in a story, whereas in a situation where it would humiliate or harm a user like John Smith, it is unethical and should not be done by reporters.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By REBECCA COHEN In a world where it is normal to know what a complete stranger is doing at any given time, thanks to social media, where do we draw the line with reporters? If Hilary Clinton tweets about her … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[37,26,25],"class_list":["post-736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rebecca-cohen","tag-journalism-ethics","tag-reporting","tag-social-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/reporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/reporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/reporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/reporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/reporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=736"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/reporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":746,"href":"https:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/reporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736\/revisions\/746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/reporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/reporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.com.miami.edu\/reporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}