The New York Times issued new guidelines to its editorial staff on appropriate use of social media, urging reporters to avoid making any public comments on social platforms that would suggest a political view or bias.
“We can effectively pull back the curtain and invite readers to witness, and potentially contribute to, our reporting,” the paper said in its new guidelines published Friday. “We can also reach new audiences. But social media presents potential risks for The Times. If our journalists are perceived as biased or if they engage in editorializing on social media, that can undercut the credibility of the entire newsroom.”
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The Times specifically instructed journalists to “not express partisan opinions, promote political views, endorse candidates, make offensive comments or do anything else that undercuts The Times’s journalistic reputation.”
The paper’s chief White House correspondent Peter Baker specifically address President Trump in the new guide.
“Tweets about President Trump by our reporters and editors are taken as a statement from the New York Times as an institution,” he said, adding that, “In this charged environment, we all need to be in this together.”
The guidelines are to apply to any social media, including popular ones like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat.
The new guide comes after Times White House reporter Glenn Thrush, previously a lively and sometimes confrontational voice on Twitter, said in late September he would no longer be tweeting.
Comments on social media have often been hazardous for journalists who work for purportedly objective news institutions.
Last year in November, the Los Angeles Times fired a freelance reporter who suggested on Twitter that he wished then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was dead.
