Has the social media trend in reporting made the reporters forget their original love of being social?

In a world where social media is sometimes the only news outlet that someone pays attention to, there is a call to reporters to be present on all platforms and engage in their online audience. This task can become difficult because the line that separates too personal and too professional is thin and harsh. Reporters seem to be slipping into only being their professional selves and losing anything personal about them.

The “Journalist’s Resource” dug in deeper to see what challenges reporters really face with professional social media accounts. The findings were that the pressure of having to keep a certain professional but very present attitude is difficult and tiring.

The study pointed out that “Reporters struggle with balancing their professional and personal identities online. They “feel pressure to stake a claim on their beat, develop a presence as an expert in their profession and area of coverage, and act as a representative of the news organization at all times. This leaves little room for aspects of personal identity such as family, faith, or friendship to be shared online.”

Being in the public eye can be daunting. Even in small local media, people are critical of everything from what a reporter wears to how they say a certain sentence in a story. If something is too personal on their professional social media page, people may get angry. If there are always only very professional “robot-like” posts on the account, then people won’t relate and lose interest. So where is the line?

The line is often given by the station. Some news directors could want a very engaged audience with reporters that constantly tweet updates, do Facebook Live feeds, and respond to comments directed towards them on all platforms. While a reporter is busy always looking at their phone to make sure they are socially updating enough, they could potentially forget that that have personal social media too or not even care to look at it after a long day using professional social media.

“This choice presents a paradox: if journalists choose to present too much of a personal identity, they risk punishment by their employers, if they present only a professional identity, they risk offending their audiences,” said the authors in the article.

It’s hard to really know how to sit right on the line that divides doing the right thing professionally; reporters often just have to take a guess and hope they are doing enough to do right by their “brand”. 

On many professional accounts reporters don’t really share personal information such as photos of their significant other or their pet peeve of the day but they do try to be relatable in the way they caption a tweet or post a fun Sunday morning brunch poll to get viewers engaged.

If a reporter wants to have or is asked to brand themselves a certain way professionally, they can do that. Reporters who want to be known for being serious and always having updates on their coverage areas as soon as possible, then they will strive to have a heavy social media presence. If that person wants to do the lighter side of news and a lot of feel-good stories, then a picture of a cute puppy wouldn’t be unlikely on that profile’s timeline.

The idea that a reporter is no longer their own person but a 24/7 reflection of the station’s brand is almost a sad one in a way. These people are of course dedicated to their work and want to do what is right, but don’t have the ability to truly do so do to needing the public to see them as professionals. Everyone has a different opinion on what is seen as professional and reporters try to please everyone, often forgetting what some of their own personality traits even are.