To tweet or not to tweet

First appeared on The Drum

Twitter bird

Last Wednesday, an email was sent to Sky News journalists instructing them not to retweet stories by other journalists and to check with the newsdesk first before breaking their own stories on Twitter. How odd for a broadcaster that has done so much to drive its social media creds – and how wrong.

A basic tenet of journalism is freedom of speech, and a basic tenet of social media is that it is immediate and largely without rules. Good journalism is based on debate and acknowledging the views of others even if you disagree with those views. And the best journalism is about communicating a rounded picture, that presents both sides of a debate and leaves the reader to make up his/her own mind. This move from Sky News smacks of dumbing down debate and the healthy exchange of opinion.

When Apple launched its iPhone, the tech journalists refined their opinions of it in part through Twitter debate – it was an admirable demonstration of their shared expertise, and even if you were in the minority that wanted nothing to do with Apple, it was exhilarating to track. And it’s just one, small, demonstration of the all-inclusive contribution Twitter makes to a story.