Keeping It To Yourself, Take 2
A few months back (Oct. 12, to be exact) I posted some thoughts about journalists keeping their political opinions off of social networking sites. To wit, journalists should refrain from announcing their support for a political candidate on these sites -- as well as car bumper stickers, t-shirts, button, etc.
Only one person, Aiesha Little of Cincinnati, weighed in with her opinion... Here it is:
Facebook is where you "friend" people so presumably the only people who have access to your profile page are the people you want to have access to it. To me, there's an important difference between displaying a piece of flair on your Facebook page that supports a candidate and, say, this:
Radio reporter fired over Obama T-shirt
George Hunter / The Detroit News
SOUTHFIELD -- Longtime Metro Detroit radio reporter Karen Dinkins has been fired after wearing a pro-Barack Obama T-shirt while covering a rally for the presidential candidate Sunday at the Detroit Public Library.
Dinkins, who has worked at WWJ (950 AM) for 13 years, acknowledged that the radio station fired her Monday, but she did not elaborate.
"I don't want to comment at this time," she said.
Georgeann Herbert, WWJ's director of programming, said in a statement that Dinkins compromised the station's objectivity by wearing the T-shirt.
"(The station) believes that our credibility with our listeners rests on the independence of our newsroom staff," the statement said. "WWJ does not favor any candidate, party or issue.
"While we encourage employees to exercise their rights as citizens, we expect them to be on guard against any actual or perceived conflict of interest when covering news stories," the statement said.
Now Poynter is weighing in, with an
interesting study. Check it out.