WSJ Rules of Conduct Good for All

by lisa ~ May 14, 2009

May 14, 2009 - Editorial employees of the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, and MarketWatch were given newly compiled guidelines for professional conduct. In addition to a lengthy section about online activities, there are standard guidelines about speech-making, radio and TV appearances, freelance writing, and so on. The section covering online activities - encompassing social networking sites, e-mail, personal blogs, and other sites outside the company’s own sites - is particularly detailed, according to Editor & Publisher. Here’s a sampling:

* Base all comments posted in your role as a Dow Jones employee in the facts, drawing from and citing your reporting when appropriate. Sharing your personal opinions, as well as expressing partisan political views, whether on Dow Jones sites or on the larger Web, could open us to criticism that we have biases and could make a reporter ineligible to cover topics in the future for Dow Jones.

* Consult your editor before “connecting” to or “friending” any reporting contacts who may need to be treated as confidential sources. Openly “friending” sources is akin to publicly publishing your Rolodex.

Not only are the guidelines good for reporters, they are actually rules that all of us should live by. The admonishment to avoid disparaging the work of colleagues or competitors or aggressively promoting your own work is certainly good advice for everyone.

There is one guideline, though, that is patently absurd. Reporters must be “tonally neutral” when asking questions during interviews. Having done heavy media relations for the world’s two largest credit rating agencies, I experienced many loaded questions rather than those that were tonally neutral. In fact, many of them - in interview after interview - fell into a category that flacks know well: The “have you stopped beating your wife?” questions.

But I am being cynical. Perhaps the new rules of conduct will put the admittedly limited number of offenders on notice.

To read the complete Editor & Publisher article, “New ‘WSJ’ Conduct Rules Target Twitter, Facebook,” click here:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003972544

Lisa Tibbitts (Lisa.Tibbitts@Me.com) is a New York-based corporate communications professional with an MBA in marketing. Follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/FinancialPR.

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