It’s time for journalists to stop tweeting

“For good measure CTV goes on to quote two left wing union bosses, who of course are predictably outraged. A more accurate headline would be ‘“Four people on the left angry about use of Notwithstanding Clause.’” It went on and, if you are so inclined, you can read the rest here. The reporter, no doubt stung by the response and having experienced what should be every journalist’s worst nightmare—becoming a story—posted and later deleted a response suggesting Kenney had too much time on his hands. CTV’s only public response was to change the word “experts” in its headline to “critics.” And then the reporter did what more of her colleagues should do and stopped posting on X. Hopefully, this will amount to a tough lesson learned, and she will go on to have a long and successful career as a respected journalist. Which brings me to my broader point about the need for online decorum by newsies. I understand that many employers have encouraged their newsroom staff to be active on social media and build a persona in order to drive traffic (clicks) to their websites and, in turn, earn revenue. And I expect that many of them, watching their colleagues being laid off by the thousands over the past couple of decades, viewed the accumulation of Twitter/X followers as a way to maintain the ability to pay the mortgage. And, hey, it’s always fun to have fans. Unfortunately, while that may have made sense to all involved as a short-term strategy, it is a long-term error for journalism. It’s fine for people paid for their opinions, such as Andrew Coyne, David Staples, Rick Bell, and Althia Raj, to be expressing their points of view on social media. But it is not fine for people paid to be unbiased authors of news presented in an objective fashion to do the same. Some news organizations appear to have caught on to that. Toronto Star, Wall Street Journal, and Globe and Mail reporters, for instance, maintain a presence on social media but are generally very disciplined. They appear to use X to keep abreast of breaking events, while distributing their own and their colleagues’ work in a professional fashion. This is a sound practice. Global News, City News, and CTV News have, from my perspective, been more liberal in their use of X, but some seem to be learning from experiences such as the one above and that of a City News Edmonton reporter who took a few days’ break from X after a post last month drew a crowd. Turns out saying things like “Quite the press conference from (Conservative Leader) Pierre Poilievre in Calgary today. Basically…the Liberals suck, the media sucks and a lot of other stuff in Canada sucks. Hey, it worked for Trump,” make people less trusting of journos. He has since used more neutral language. As for the CBC, the majority of its reporters appear to be adhering to the corporate social media guidelines to avoid controversy. Those opting for a higher, if riskier, profile include Jason Markusoff, who is generally careful but—what’s the word?—“busy” and apparently transitioning from reporter to commentator. Evan Dyer, whose frequent posts on the war in Gaza earned him the online nickname “Intifada Evan,” is perhaps the CBC’s most notorious Tweeter. He has, however, been more restrained recently following an unpleasant outburst that can be found in the link. Still, the undisciplined behaviour of some persists in harming the reputations of all as the craft struggles to maintain public trust in reporters’ willingness to deliver news in an unbiased fashion. There is, however, a positive trend towards neutrality. Newsroom managers may at last be reaching the conclusion that deploying journalists as click magnets was, at best, an example of the destructive perils of short-termism. Here’s hoping they don’t prove me wrong.