In other words you are to consider social media as public spaces. So going public on them with your personal opinions taints the objectivity of your on-air reporting. You become just another Lou Dobbs, someone who voices personal opinions from behind the bully pulpit of a news desk.
These new social media guidelines mean no rants, raves, or ramblings by NPR reporters (or NPR station reporters) that could jeopardize NPR News' reputation for impartial reporting.
As a reporter who blogs for her beloved NPR station, I'd already figured out that once you're a reporter, you're never not a reporter. In dealing with opinion, my job is to elicit and report other people's in a compelling way, rather than voice my own.
Maintaining objectivity is something I regularly worry about when posting on this blog. I need to be present here -- what fun would it to e-converse with someone whose personality remains completely opaque -- without expressing my own personal point of view. This blog's purpose is to jump-start informed conversation, not fuel argument or outrage.
Confession time: I do have personal opinions, quite passionate opinions, about politics, religion, the environment, education -- in fact, about almost everything! But if they ever show up blatantly in this blog, I hope you will, as our president said of those who oppose programs with untruths, call me out on it!
