The UK media regulatory body the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) may start regulating UK reporters’ tweets, the Guardian reported.
The move is “the first time” the PCC has tried to include social media postings under its jurisdiction. According to the Guardian, the PCC includes some journalists tweets as “newspaper’s editorial product” and therefore under the PCC’s regulation.
Currently the PCC has no authority to do anything about inaccurate tweets by news outlets or their journalists.
But, the possible regulation wouldn’t include journalists’ personal accounts, the Guardian added, noting that journalists like BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones uses “multiple accounts in an effort to preserve professional and personal distinctions.”
Further, the PCC is calling on newspapers to create “Twitter policy” dividing personal tweets and newspaper-related tweets.
iMediaEthics wrote in February when the PCC ruled that it was OK for two UK newspapers, the Daily Mail and the Independent to publish tweets by “civil servant” Sarah Baskerville.
Baskerville, who works for the Department of Transport, had her tweets set to public but noted in her “bio” that the account is her “personal account, personal views. Nothing to do with my employers.” The two newspapers published stories about her tweets about work.
iMediaEthics has written to the PCC’s communications director Jonathan Collett for more information and will update with any response.