not teaching,
still THINKING …
Archaic is the word we’d use to describe cautions about privacy that we shared back in 2011 when “Think Like an Editor” was published. We say “archaic” now because privacy at that time was something that seemed able to be protected. Today, it seems, everything is public.
Yet those cautions are still valid today. Even more so. That’s because some things just should not “be out there.”
Here, again, are our cautions:
- Beware that whatever you put in an email or post on your organization’s internal network could show up elsewhere
- Realize that when it comes to personal relations and personnel, these sensitive and private matters must be protected
- Be careful or you might see your business communication written up or posted on a media blog or in the local alternative media
- Don’t post your newsroom’s truly inside business where others can see it, or where it can be copied, pasted and forwarded
- Save personnel matters for official communication or face-to-face conversation
- When you do post internally or send email, be sure your communication is written in such a way that you are comfortable if it “gets out”
- Apply the same careful thinking inside the walls of your news organization as you do with news and information that you publish outside the walls
Ah, now there is where the archaic part comes in because today there really are no walls. The very essence of freedom to communicate is also the very thing that can upend all of your good work and your good intentions. Think first. Thinking will never be old-fashioned.
(These two profs are no longer teaching at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, but we are still thinking.)