Their timing was perfect as evidenced by today’s announcement that Cision is now going to track and sort Tweet content of thousands of reporters, freelancers, bloggers and broadcasters with the idea of "providing PR professionals with an extra level of intelligence — journalists' interests in real-time." Word to the wise, watch what you tweet.
According to WSJ’s rules of contact put together by deputy managing editor Alix Freedman, openly “friending” sources is “akin to publicly publishing your Rolodex.” That’s not a very good idea.
The Journal warns reporters that sharing political views in the online world could open the WSJ open to “criticism that we have biases and could make a reporter ineligible to cover topics in the future for Dow Jones.” The memo says discussing future articles or interviews is not allowed. It is an excellent way to tip off story subjects and competitors. Another gem: don't have friends, others heap praise on your journalistic brilliance, while bashing rivals. That could be professional suicide.
The WSJ tips are pretty much common sense--though necessary to make. There is an intoxicating nature to places like Twitter, where reporters let their guards down. They mouth off on topics or tackle subjects they are not expert in. That can backfire and lead to embarrassing repercussions in the “real world.”
There is one saving grace. The novelty of Twitter, which already has a “been there, done that" feel to it, wears off very quickly. Nielsen Online reports that Twitter’s audience retention rate—people still tweeting after a month — is under 30 percent. That’s half the rate of Facebook and MySpace.
Good luck, Cision.