A panel presentation made to the South Africa National Editor's Forum outlining the challenges related to regulating responsible and responsive social media and network practice in South African newsrooms through policy development, education, reflection and practice

1. Walking the (social media) line
Presentation for SA National Editors Forum
panel on Social Media
31 August 2013
Jude Mathurine
Rhodes School of Journalism and Media
Studies New Media Lab
@newmediajude

2. The Context
• Media reliance on the former audience is growing as
digital and networked ICTs and channels permit
read/write potential which broadens possibilities for
media production, consumption and distribution.
• Digital cleavages notwithstanding, social media and
networks (SMNS) are the gateway to media access and
potential engagement for some user demographics.
• Traditional media companies must have a broad view
of SMNS that includes comments, blogs, social video
etc. not just Facebook updates, pins and tweets

3. The Context
• Innovators and early adopters in newsroom
often experiment with tools and channels
before used in the mainstream
• Journalists need to be keenly aware of
regulations pertaining to use, aggregation and
curation data from public social media channels.
• SMNS pose various content, conduct and
contact challenges to journalists who employ
them.

4. Challenges for media professionals
• Copyright violation through use or
republishing of UGC without attribution
and/or permission and/or remuneration

5. Challenges for professionals
• Re/publishing of
false/inaccurate
news/data from
realtime
updates, livestreams, wi
kis, blogs e.g. publishing
of Bin Laden death mask
photos, fake tsunami
pictures (The Citizen -
2005) or faux video

7. Challenges for professionals
• Re/publishing of false/inaccurate news/data from
realtime updates, livestreams, wikis, blogs
• Re/publishing of defamatory claims without public
interest/fair comment defence
• Invasion of privacy e.g. posing as friend or follower to
access private social data
• Over-reliance on online and SMNS resulting in shallow
reporting and churnalism
• Public conflates private and public communication by
media workers regardless of use of disclaimers on
profiles (although use of disclaimers is important for
fair-dealing)

8. Challenges for professionals
• Re/publishing UGC which may violate particular laws
related to limitations to freedom of expression e.g
hate speech, incitement to war, Film and Publications
Act
• Engaging in online social activities that could be
interpreted as harassment (e.g. Cyberbullying Act 0f
2013)
• Failing to moderate questionable online
communication in a timely fashion (Dutch Reformed
Church Vergesig, Johannesburg Congregation and
Another v Rayan Soknunan 2012, H vs W 2013)

9. Challenges for professionals
• Bias and imputation of bias in tweets.
• Bias may also be suggested over time by mining
journalists’ tweets to determine their attitude to an
organisation or issue.

10. Challenges for professionals
• Keeping corporate and professional social media
accounts (YouTube, Twitter, HootSuite, Facebook etc)
secure.
• Associated Press journalists accounts were phished prior
to tweet below. The resulting panic resulted in 143 point
fall on the Dow Jones and wiped $136bn from S&P500

11. Challenges for professionals
• Challenge to data security of newsrooms.
20% of Facebook links in newsfeeds may link
to malware [stat not independently verified]
• How to address mistakes. In SA, errors
resulting from realtime or near/realtime
publishing seldom admitted or addressed
online.
• Publishing of internal confidential or sensitive
information

12. What’s to be done?
• Danger to credibility of news organisations and
traditional journalistic values of
truthtelling, balance, comprehensiveness, independe
nce, accuracy
• Social media policy needs to be developed in
consultation with staff with a view to overall strategy
around professional social media use
• Social media policy and professional approaches
need to be developed in with a view to overall
strategy around amateur UGC use incl CCTV footage

13. What’s to be done?
• Social media policy must consider how to correct
errors
• There is NO uniform SM policy since SM strategies
and approaches vary from media company to
company

14. SANEF Guidelines?
• SANEF guidelines will have to consider existing
regulatory frameworks including BCCSA, Press
Council etc.
• Needs to determine best practice and norms that
embrace widest possible potential for media
freedom cognisant of limits to the same framed
by the constitution, law and professional norms
and standards.
• SANEF guidelines will need to consider broad
view of social media – not just Twitter and FB

16. Some guidelines
• Just because it is online, doesn't mean conventional rules
and norms don't apply. Be sensible and sensitive to other
people's rights and interests
• Identify yourself as a journalist and include a disclaimer
on your social media profiles.
• Don't conduct yourself in a manner that would amount
to cyber-bullying (or harassment) in terms of the
Protection of Harassment Act or you could land up in jail.
• Have an online corrections policy to address errors and
inaccuracies timeously and transparently.

17. Some guidelines
• Respect privacy on social media. Do not use content from
private Facebook profiles unless there is an public
interest argument. This is akin to quoting “off the record”
conversation
• Vet, verify and contextualise information curated from
social media accounts
• Don’t engage in character assassination, name
calling, bullying and threats. Don’t bait trolls.
• Facilitate easy reporting of abuse on your social
networking channels.

18. Some guidelines
• Verify ownership of and attribute all third
party content
• Employ and train journalists and online editors
who can apply understanding of media
regulation to
newsgathering, curation, engagement, market
ing, crowdsourcing and data mining using
SMNs.
• Be transparent. Declare conflicts of interests.
• Don’t do anything stupid (BBC)

19. Education and training: J-Schools
• Student clubs, societies &
media face similar issues
• Convene roundtables
with educators to discuss
social media use and
challenges in newsrooms.
• Evolve organic processes
to discuss implications of
SMNS
use, hosting, publishing

20. Education and training: J-Schools
• SMNS is multidimensional problem variously affecting
media specialisations e.g. photography, TV. Result is
now general ethics & law course and applied ethics &
law in JMC specialisations
• To co-develop a model for teaching students (and
educators) about best SMNS practice assumes that
students in SA universities are actually learning and
practicing online journalism.
• In class, case study oriented learning works best.
• In JMS4 new media specialisation, students are given
scenario to develop and debate outcomes of a social
media policy for a designated media institution

21. Education and training: J-Schools
• An RU SMNS Seminar (in Sept) hopes to initiate organic
conversation and process for development of norms
that students, clubs and societies buy into
• Within the university, there is a need for best practice
and norms that embrace widest possible potential
freedom of expression cognisant of limits framed by
the constitution. Institutions may also choose to set
their own internal SMNS norms.
• Framework guidelines from SANEF could inform
conversations and workshops for campus media
development of SMNS policy.

22. Education and training: Newsroom
• Consider policy creation as an educational moment.
• Policy should be developed as an instrument to
facilitate social media engagement – not solely as a
punitive tool
• Effective SMNS principles developed by SANEF can
be used as a basis for media organisations’ own
organic development of policies.

23. Education and training: Newsroom
• Media organisations must learn to monitor and
discuss institutional, staff SMNS use in appropriate
forums.
• Incorporate discussions of social media analytics into
news diary meetings to:
– inform agenda setting (news priorities)
– inform SMNS strategy;
– guide staff conduct wrt. best SMNS approaches for
conduct, contact, content etc.
• Newsroom training and policy development needs
to be supported from the top.

24. For more…
• For more on regulation and accountability
mechanisms that influence SA social media
use, read – Walking the Social Media Line in
Rhodes Journalism Review #33:
•http://goo.gl/HWS11v