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The Washington Post’s Twitter mishaps

  

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A very interesting debate amongst social media and traditional media outlets began recently when the Washington Post issued a memo telling journalists not to answer readers from “Post branded” twitter accounts. The Post went so far as to issue a stern warning to staff to not even use their personal twitter accounts to answer critics and “speak on behalf of the post”. The memo stems from an article written by guest columnist, Tony Perkins, who wrote an article pertaining to the recent teen suicide at Rutgers University and others that were seemingly caused by online bullying on social media sites. The article argued that most of the young people were being portrayed as victims of “anti-gay” bullying which caused them to commit suicide. Perkins argued that the media was vilifying Christian beliefs that portrayed a homosexual lifestyle as “wrong” and in turn made such bullying appear tolerated. The article went on to suggest that homosexuality was a form of “mental health problem” and then attempted to take an altruistic approach offering the homosexual community “hope”. This is a brief excerpt from the article:

There is an abundance of evidence that homosexuals experience higher rates of mental health problems in general, including depression. However, there is no empirical evidence to link this with society's general disapproval of homosexual conduct. In fact, evidence from the Netherlands would seem to suggest the opposite, because even in that most "gay-friendly" country on earth, research has shown homosexuals to have much higher mental health problems.

It is the directive of opinion-based journalists to inspire debate and provoke questions among the readers, and with such a heated topic the Washington Post appeared to be providing that to its readers. There was the expected backlash from organizations such as GLAAD and others and what appears to have happened is that individual reporters chose to answer these critics via a Washington Post branded social media account. The Post chose to issue the memo mentioned earlier to its staffers describing the decision to answer critics via social media as “misguided” as a means to defend the decision to publish the article. The memo went on to mention that as a “matter of practice. It shouldn’t have been sent”. The Post offered a scenario to its staff: When a reader writes to an editor, a direct response to the reader’s question or criticism would never be published or approved by the Post as an official stance. The managing editor issued the memo and condemned offering what appears to readers as an official response from a Post-branded social media account. The memo went on to instruct writers to allow the team at the Post to respond to reader questions or criticisms.

The interesting debate arising is whether this stern stance should be assumed by the Washington Post. As it was mentioned earlier the rationale is based on what appears to be a fairly antiquated model of diminishing media publications. The traditional model of publishing an article in the paper and then a few days later an editor may receive a letter from a reader condemning the content. That person may or may not have the letter published in the paper after another two to three days with a follow up from the editor. By that time the discussion surrounding the matter of the original article is rarely still pertinent and would be unlikely to cause any further debate. Today’s media is incredibly interactive and consumers of media are increasingly aware of their ability to contact a writer at their email address or simply to follow their Twitter accounts and respond there. With media outlets complaining of lowering circulations and staff writers being replaced or competing with online bloggers some news organizations have encouraged writers to engage readers via social media. This seems to serve as a means of remaining relevant to individuals who wish to not only read the opinions espoused by writers of the publication but to be given the opportunity to share their contradicting opinions. The concern for these publications is assuming responsibility for the un-edited thoughts of its staff.

So it appears the Post offered its stance on the issue. The answer for other organizations will be interesting. Any organization that attempts to walk the fine line between embracing a society that is becoming increasingly more comfortable with interacting via social media must weigh that against potentially opening themselves to backlash from poor decisions made by those empowered to represent brands through social media. If people who are paid to offer their opinions to a huge audience are being monitored then is your brand offering the same diligence in protecting its reputation?