Bbc, nuove linee-guida ai giornalisti: le breaking news prima nella newsroom che su Twitter

La Bbc ha pubblicato un aggiornamento delle linee-guida destinate ai propri giornalisti sul tema delle breaking news e del rapporto con i social media. In particolare, secondo il manualetto Breaking news guidance for BBC journalists, da ora in poi i dipendenti dell’emittente non potranno lanciare su Twitter una breaking news (né sul proprio account personale né su quello ufficiale della tv) prima di aver pubblicato la notizia sulla piattaforma di gestione dei contenuti secondo le modalità tradizionalmente previste.

When they have some breaking news, an exclusive or any kind of urgent update on a story, they must get written copy into our newsroom system as quickly as possible, so that it can be seen and shared by everyone – both the news desks which deploy our staff and resources (like TV trucks) as well as television, radio and online production teams. So what about Twitter, the micro-blogging site where millions of people, including many of our journalists, communicate via short bursts of text? We prize the increasing value of Twitter, and other social networks, to us (and our audiences) as a platform for our content, a newsgathering tool and a new way of engaging with people. [..] But we’ve been clear that our first priority remains ensuring that important information reaches BBC colleagues, and thus all our audiences, as quickly as possible – and certainly not after it reaches Twitter.

In realtà, però, l’impatto di questa novità non sarà così penalizzante per i fan del sito di microblogging. Infatti:

We have a large, worldwide pool of correspondents, reporters and producers. So we’re fortunate to have technology that allows them to get text into the BBC newsroom system and to their own Twitter accounts at the same time. But when the technology isn’t available, for whatever reason, we’re asking them to prioritise telling the newsroom before sending their own tweet. We’re talking a difference of a few seconds.