Dean Wright of Reuters writes Wednesday about the social media standards that the news organization just published for its reporters and editors.

The guidelines, which can be read here, state in part, “The distinction between the private and the professional has largely broken down online and you should assume that your professional and personal social media activity will be treated as one no matter how hard you try to keep them separate.”

Wright writes, “In building the new guidelines, we’ve embraced some basic principles:

- We encourage the use of social media approaches in Reuters journalism.
- Accuracy, freedom from bias and independence are fundamental to our reputation. These values and the Trust Principles apply to journalism produced using social media just as they have to all other journalism produced by Reuters.
- A distinguishing feature of Reuters is the trust invested in its journalists to rise above personal biases in their work and to apply common sense in dealing with the challenges offered by social media.”

“This last point is particularly important to me.  I’ve written in the past about how we depend on our journalists to rise above their biases to cover stories in an independent way, whether they’re in Gaza or Washington–or anywhere else.”

Read more here.