In November of this year, the AP revised their social media guidelines for their employees cracking down on restrictions in the name of affiliation. It is their idea that all their journalists are directly linked to AP and therefore always represent them.
The idea of re-tweeting entered their guidelines for fear that a "naked" retweet would suggest a journalist endorses something (and that's against journalist ethics 101, isn't it?)
A naked re-tweet simply means a journalist retweets something without a lead-in for context, which could be mistaken for endorsement.
Does this limit journalist's freedom? does it counteract the changing ideas of social media? or is it a simple way of covering yourself, once again?
I'd say it shows great confusion about what AP expects from its tweeters. A simple on-site statement to the effect of *Obviously retweeting does not mean approval of the info at the end of the link* should solve the problem. A naked retweet is a sign of trust on the part of the tweeter regarding those who read the tweet. Old media continue to search for a clue.
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