Journalist Gina Chen on Ethics in a Social Networking World

Here is an absolutely fantastic post by Gina Chen writing on Savethemedia.com about ethics in the social networking world.

It should be read and understood by everyone in the profession.

I think ethics are ethics. You can’t have one set of rules for online and another for print. But I do think the medium impacts how we live out these philosophies, and I’ll get to that more later. When it comes to social media, one of the key questions becomes: If a journalist offers an opinion on Twitter, is that unethical? Does that violate some type of rule? Think about that ...

I hear so many times writers and editors justifying to themselves "well, it's just a blog (post, tweet ... whatever)." But ethics are a true test to who we are, and they cross platforms.