A few days ago, in this blog entry, I asked, Will news journalists jumping on the twitter bandwagon cross the line and convict someone in the court of online public opinion BEFORE they get their trial?

As I caught up on my blog reading this evening, as I listened to Gary Stager at NECC 09 (straight-talk was great!) after a day of lounging and swimming, I searched again for guidelines for journalists…while it’s easy to imagine how Twitter is being used to make things right, it’s also important to realize that before things can be made right, if somehow, an assertion is made that goes unchallenged and then accepted as truth and spread quickly via our PLNs, that can easily become a problem that’s almost impossible to deal with.

At MediaShift, 20 rules for tweeting journalists are shared…here are the ones that strike me as the most important:

1. Think carefully about what you’re re-tweeting and acknowledge if it’s unsubstantiated.
2. Don’t lock your account if you want to use Twitter for reporting purposes — this fosters distrust.
3. If you quote a tweet, attribute it.
4. Expect your competitors to steal your leads if you tweet about them.
5. Scrutinize crowdsourced stories closely.
6. Add value to your tweets with links, Twitpic and other applications for audio and video.

As I review these 6 tips from MediaShift, the only change I’d make is to adjust #4 to read, Encourage others to share your tweets about lead stories with attribution.

This is also worth reading.

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure