September 21, 2012

Associated Press
At the Associated Press Media Editors confab in Nashville, Tenn., AP Executive Editor and Senior Vice President Kathleen Carroll promised the service’s users it wouldn’t scoop them:

“You all pay us a chunk of change to break news to you, and so we do,” she said. “And once it’s broken to you, we promote it on the social networks.”

This isn’t a new policy for the news co-op: Last year it admonished staffers who tweeted about the arrest of an AP reporter and photographer at an Occupy protest before the news hit the wire. It’s the first time I’ve heard it expressed in business terms, though.

Also at the conference, Journatic CEO Brian Timpone told a room of Twittering reporters “I don’t mind being the punching bag for change.” (One comedian took a photo of Journatic’s empty booth and wondered if its staffers were in the Philippines.)

Erik Schelzig reports AP political editor Liz Sidoti “said the AP and other news organizations remain committed to fact-checking the candidates.” I have every confidence this excludes the sort of research that wound up in its weird piece on Bill Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Committee.

Related: AP adds new social media guidelines on live-tweeting, friending/following sources | AP issues staff guidelines on retweets, no ‘personal opinions’ allowed or implied | AP updates social media guidelines a week after warning staffers about expressing opinions | Memo: Departure of AP’s social media editor unrelated to new guidelines

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Andrew Beaujon reported on the media for Poynter from 2012 to 2015. He was previously arts editor at TBD.com and managing editor of Washington City…
Andrew Beaujon

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