CBC Censorship?
Listening to today’s For Immediate Release, Shel brought up the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s new guidelines regarding employee use of social media. This includes urging CBC journalists with Facebook pages to refrain from adding PR contacts as Facebook “friends,” and offering a set of guidelines for employee blogs.
Along with the basic recommendations that are commonplace in most workplaces (for example, not using company time to partake in personal activity online), the CBC also notes that any employee with a personal blog in which they identify themselves as an employee of the CBC must be approved by a supervisor. Of particular note, the policies recommend against sharing any personal political views:
Further, the blog cannot advocate for a group or a cause, or express partisan political opinion. It should also avoid controversial subjects or contain material that could bring CBC/Radio-Canada into disrepute.
To start and maintain a blog of this kind, you need your supervisor’s approval.
The conversation following the post with the details at the Inside the CBC Blog has been quite spirited, with a few understanding a company’s desire to protect its reputation by limiting its employees’ online activities, but the vast majority calling the policies draconian, and an intrusion on their personal rights to an opinion. Who is right? Unfortunately, this area is quite grey.
When considering issues like this, I tend to be rather lenient, perhaps because I participate in so many online conversations. Something untoward is bound to slip out at some point, isn’t it? It happens, we’re all human. Others may argue that a company’s employees are its representatives–anything they say that could reflect poorly is a direct concern of management. Both are good arguments.
My issue with the CBC’s guidelines (and they are just that, as management was quick to chime in on the blog: they are not yet official policies) goes more towards its intention to maintain editorial control on employee blogs, something one of the commenters sums up nicely:
I can see, up to a point, the concern about what these employees blog reflecting on the CBC. But, why not just insist that they have a disclaimer, as you do, that this is personal opinion and not that of the CBC? I’d be pissed off if my work told me I had to censor myself, after work hours, outside the office, and on my own time.
Exactly. Blogs quite frequently carry the disclaimer that they are not necessarily representative of the views of the blogger’s employer, why shouldn’t that be enough for the CBC?
I’m also quite interested in their decision to ask journalists to resist “friending” PR contacts or sources. Why? Facebook has the potential to be an extremely useful tool for both flacks and journalists alike–why not embrace it? I think this smacks of another large corporation resisting the 2.0 wave and clinging to more old-fashioned policies. If journalists and PR professionals are going to continue their symbiotic relationship, then they must both evolve with the times, and PR is headed in a direction that mainstream media must follow–at least if it wants to remain relevant.
The best way to avoid online embarrassment? Hire smart, thoughtful, creative people and, if anything, encourage them to share their views! It’s worked quite well for Microsoft. Lighten up, CBC!
