Fair Game: Friend or Fan?

You wouldn't know it these days from my frequent posting of status messages and commentary, but I came to Facebook back in 2006 for strictly business purposes. As a higher education reporter whose only connection to student sources was an .edu e-mail that no one checks and a dorm phone that no one has, the social networking site was invaluable.

For years, I've used Facebook to contact interview subjects. One of the best methods is searching groups that are organized around a certain subject. But what happens when the group, or people in it, want to take the relationship to the next step? What's the ethical response when a source wants to "friend" you or a group asks you to be a "fan?"

Let me say that at this point being someone's friend on Facebook means little more than being a real-word acquaintance. Likewise, being a fan of a group doesn't even indicate that you've ever been to an event or met most of the people in that circle.

Still, at the risk of being labeled a traditionalist, I'd hedge toward politely declining these offers in the name of neutrality. It's easier just to accept, of course. But there's a strong argument to be made that publically supporting any group you cover as a journalist shows a bias, just as it would if you signed a petition or made a donation -- though those acts seem more egregious.

Part of this equation, of course, is what you're covering and who you're "fanning." I couldn't imagine a political reporter becoming a fan of the local Democratic or Republican Party. But it'd be easier to envision an arts reporter being a fan of a symphony.

I suppose the question should be this: Does joining an inner circle give you a better chance at hearing about information that could lead to a scoop? And does the possibility of that positive outcome outweigh the potential impression of being aligned with a certain group or cause?

Facebook, a.k.a. Sourcebook

True story: I joined Facebook strictly for work purposes.

As a higher education reporter constantly searching for student quotes, I needed Facebook in a bad way. Simply put, young people generally don't have land lines. Colleges list students' addresses and room numbers, but again, that's not much help nowadays. (And you can forget about getting any info from schools about high school students.)

Some Facebook searches are so easy that a reporter almost feels guilty. Like when you're doing a story about students who are against college x bringing speaker y to campus, and you find a group called "Students against college x bringing speaker y to campus."

More often, finding good sources through Facebook is like finding good sources via other methods -- it requires putting to use the shotgun method. Put out a bunch of e-mails and see what comes back. (It takes a few tries to learn the art of crafting the initial message to a student explaining that, no, you're not a creepy stranger or Internet spammer.)

And with social networking sites, you can make more informed decisions about who you contact: You can search by major, year in school, political affiliation, etc.

Journalists are increasingly seeing social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace as treasure chests of sources. Beatblogging.org, a collaborative effort by a dozen news organizations and NewAssignment.Net to think about how journalists can use social networks to improve beat reporting, had a recent post about the importance of using Facebook.

The blog's author makes several important points. He writes:

In [one reporter's] current newsroom, it's a bit unclear how editors feel about using social networks in the reporting process. At his old paper, a lot of his coworkers used social networks to help improve their reporting, but social networking is a new frontier for newspapers. Most papers are still forming policies about appropriate use of social networks for work proposes.

"We still have this situation where all the top editors are the old people," he said. "And they just haven't fully embraced how online can help our jobs."

He tries to stress to his editors that he uses Facebook as a starting point. He uses it as a way to contact students via e-mail, the phone or in person. He does not quote people's profiles.

It's hard for young journalists to believe, but there are still editors and reporters who are skeptical of anything found on a social networking site. That's why, as the blog post says, it's important that reporters make clear that they will take the conversation off Facebook as soon as possible.

That's not to say you can't have a few e-mail exchanges to warm up a source, but, as it always has been, a phone conversation is best. At the very least, a reporter should get Facebook sources to respond through another e-mail account as a way of verifying their identity.

Media Articles

I'm already breaking my promise to be outward-focused in this space, but before I get to commentary and whatnot I want to link to a few media-related articles I've done recently.

One of my favorites is about how the news media cover campus violence. Less than a year after the Virginia Tech shootings, reporters planted themselves on Northern Illinois University's campus in suburban Chicago. While coverage of this shooting rampage wasn't as all-encompassing as the reportage from Blacksburg, Va., (morning show anchors didn't show up in DeKalb, for one), the NIU shootings did receive quite a bit more coverage nationally than did a campus attack earlier in the week at Louisiana Technical College’s Baton Rouge campus. Journalism professors, media commentators and others sounded off on why certain violent outbursts tend to receive the lion's share of attention.

On a completely different subject, here's a piece I did about a new product that offers athletics departments help tracking what their players are writing on the two most popular social networking sites, Facebook and MySpace. This gets at the issue of whether athletes should be held to a different standard than students when it comes to projecting a positive image of a university. And, perhaps more to the point of this blog, it's an example of software that users say is invaluable but some argue is too invasive.

On yet another note, this is a feature story on a Pitzer College course called "Learning From YouTube." The interesting hook here is that the class not only focused on the Google-owned site, but the professor asked students to post all of their assignments on YouTube, and she taped the entire course and posted the videos for all to see.

Finally, here's a short story I did about a viral video that explains -- and demonstrates --Web 2.0.