The social networking site Twitter has in the past couple of years become a big outlet of news sharing, quite often being the first place to break stories and spreading these news pieces at top speeds. This is generally a problem free area unless you get hacked (see today's horrific Obama fake story) or if news leaks early, that was intended for a bigger unveiling. This latter area is one that is somewhat controllable and is the one that the BBC are considering to explore regarding contracts of their stars, writers and other talent that are involved with a project on their payroll. In fact what some are campaigning for is a total ban on writing about these projects on sites such as Twitter to prevent any leaks. What this would entail is a new clause being drawn up to state that any information that might be considered sensitive or confidential could not be written about online.
This drastic measure comes after several stories have been leaked rather innocently through Twitter, that has ruined marketing and PR work that the BBC had been working on and were going to announce in the near future. Examples of these ruined marketing moments include the singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor tweeting that Sting would be appearing alongside herself on the new Ricky Gervais/Stephen Merchant show Life's Too Short. The BBC had in fact prepared their own big announcement of this guest star which was swiftly wasted by 140 charcters (or less) that Bextor wrote without knowing what a big deal this spoiler was.
Other past examples of tweets that have upset BBC statements include Armando Iannucci announcing a return of the political satire The Thick of It and Stephen Mangan doing the same with the drama Dirk Gently.
An anonymous BBC executive spoke to MediaGuardian about the discussions of this proposed Twitter ban and why such a seemingly extreme measure is needed:
"Broadcasters can have a number of reasons for wanting to delay press announcements, such as the deal not being done or contracts not being signed or, indeed, the broadcaster wanting to make a big splash with a great story at a particularly opportune moment. A random tweet can rob an artist of his or her potentially much louder fanfare."
This executive also highlight the positive reach that Twitter has regarding communication but that there needs to be limits, so people who work in the PR and marketing departments can still do their jobs effectively.
Guidelines do exist regarding the use of social media when writing in a BBC capacity but because these Twitter accounts fall in to personal usage it is harder to police and the responsibility falls to the stars and their agents to read these guidelines before posting. By putting clauses in contracts this would be an area that would become easier for the BBC to control. Obviously the BBC won't want their stars/talent to stop promoting projects all together as Twitter has become such a big tool in doing so in the past few years, so it is likely to only cover anything that the BBC hasn't reported from their Press Office and once it has been it is fair game to be discussed.
As Twitter and other social networking sites are in their infancy their are still bumps in the road regarding usage and these steps that the BBC are taking seem to be as an adjustment to issues that they have encountered, but is this a step too far? Or is this needed to stop early leaks that ruin other peoples work? Let us know your thoughts on this subject in the comments below.
