NBC Stations Keep Tabs on Employee Tweets

While people typically delineate their personal and professional digital lives, there is little distinction between the two — at least as far as social media is concerned — for the news staffs at the 10 NBC-owned stations.

For the last year or so, the NBC Owned Television Stations have required individuals who work in their newsrooms — from interns and production assistants to reporters and anchors — to follow the company rules governing social media use, regardless of whether they are using the platform to promote news or their personal lives. That means news staff is prohibited from tweeting, posting or distributing via other social networking means “anything that compromises the integrity and objectivity of you or NBCUniversal,” even using a personal account, says Kevin Keeshan, ombudsman for the station group. “We ask them to think and use common sense,” he says. “Don’t post anything we’re not prepared to broadcast.” Keeshan says the policy is necessary to protect the reputations of both personnel and the news organizations they represent a time when “there is a tendency to be more flip and looser with the jargon and vernacular of the times on social media.”