New ‘friends’ should know boundaries
Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009
My list of “friends” has grown substantially in the last week.
The quotation marks, reflecting the ironic use of the word “friends,” is to make it clear that, while some of these people are actual friends, there also are several I’ve never even met.
Such is the world of social networking. Yes, I’m now out there on Facebook.
Within the next couple of weeks, all the writers and editors at The Enterprise will have established professional Facebook pages in an effort to allow more direct contact with our readers. You might not find out their high school nickname, or what kind of pet they have, but you’ll know about their education and journalistic qualifications and be able to put a face with the names that have become familiar to you.
In my parents’ day, people communicated via handwritten notes and letters, with “long-distance” phone calls limited to emergencies or infrequent special occasions.
Now, though I phone my geographically distant friends and relatives occasionally, I’m more likely to shoot them an e-mail. E-mails are the “letters” of my generation.
Younger people, the age of my young-adult children, don’t even do that. Instead, they are tied into social networks and communicate via texting, Tweeting and Web postings to sites such as Facebook.
That’s why The Enterprise now is stepping across that threshold. We hope to use it as a device to facilitate more communication between our staff members and our readers. Take a look at The Enterprise’s Facebook page or seek out an individual reporter or editor to view their page.
Some staff members are eagerly leaping into what is a familiar medium to them, while others, like me, are gingerly dipping in a toe to test the waters. My immediate concern is, since I don’t have a personal Facebook page, some actual friends have requested to extend our friendship to my professional page in this electronic world.
I know the rules and the boundaries. You’re not going to be reading about my personal life on that page: First, because it’s personal; and second, because I lead a pretty tame life and nobody wants to know how much laundry I did this weekend or what I cooked for dinner last night.
It’s important that my “friends” and those who choose to be friends with other reporters recognize that their names and faces, if not their comments, might be viewed outside their personal social circle.
The hope is that our reporters and editors can use their Facebook pages to establish communities of interest. That might provide sources for specific stories we are pursuing, ideas for stories we might be missing or different points of view that might give us better background or perspective on stories.
Though it is a promising idea, like most other ideas, it’s imperfect, so before you punch the button requesting to join a friend’s list, make sure you know what you are getting into.
* * *
Along a similar train of thought, readers who make on-line comments, call, e-mail or write to staff members in their professional roles need to recognize that those comments might appear in print or on-line. That might be in this column, on our Opinions page or even on the front page.
While, in most of those cases, the readers aren’t identified, and generally aren’t held up to ridicule, interaction initiated by readers concerning newspaper business now is part of the content of some of our products.
We don’t want to discourage any readers’ comments or complaints, but we want them to realize that contact with our staff members carries inherent permission to write about that interaction.
* * *
For those readers who have not yet explored the options available via The Enterprise’s eEdition, our Web site, BeaumontEnterprise.com, now includes a tutorial video to help readers learn how to navigate the edition’s options.
Simply click here to try it out.
We hope it will be helpful for those readers who would prefer to have someone “talk” them through the process of accessing the eEdition.
Also, a few readers have been disappointed to learn that our eEdition, though an accurate representation of the actual pages of The Enterprise, doesn’t include the Sunday comics, Parade magazine or advertising inserts. We recognize those omissions and hope to eventually get them worked out, though the complicated logistics don’t promise a resolution anytime in the near future.
My list of “friends” has grown substantially in the last week.
The quotation marks, reflecting the ironic use of the word “friends,” is to make it clear that, while some of these people are actual friends, there also are several I’ve never even met.
Such is the world of social networking. Yes, I’m now out there on Facebook.
Within the next couple of weeks, all the writers and editors at The Enterprise will have established professional Facebook pages in an effort to allow more direct contact with our readers. You might not find out their high school nickname, or what kind of pet they have, but you’ll know about their education and journalistic qualifications and be able to put a face with the names that have become familiar to you.
In my parents’ day, people communicated via handwritten notes and letters, with “long-distance” phone calls limited to emergencies or infrequent special occasions.
Now, though I phone my geographically distant friends and relatives occasionally, I’m more likely to shoot them an e-mail. E-mails are the “letters” of my generation.
Younger people, the age of my young-adult children, don’t even do that. Instead, they are tied into social networks and communicate via texting, Tweeting and Web postings to sites such as Facebook.
That’s why The Enterprise now is stepping across that threshold. We hope to use it as a device to facilitate more communication between our staff members and our readers. Take a look at The Enterprise’s Facebook page or seek out an individual reporter or editor to view their page.
Some staff members are eagerly leaping into what is a familiar medium to them, while others, like me, are gingerly dipping in a toe to test the waters. My immediate concern is, since I don’t have a personal Facebook page, some actual friends have requested to extend our friendship to my professional page in this electronic world.
I know the rules and the boundaries. You’re not going to be reading about my personal life on that page: First, because it’s personal; and second, because I lead a pretty tame life and nobody wants to know how much laundry I did this weekend or what I cooked for dinner last night.
It’s important that my “friends” and those who choose to be friends with other reporters recognize that their names and faces, if not their comments, might be viewed outside their personal social circle.
The hope is that our reporters and editors can use their Facebook pages to establish communities of interest. That might provide sources for specific stories we are pursuing, ideas for stories we might be missing or different points of view that might give us better background or perspective on stories.
Though it is a promising idea, like most other ideas, it’s imperfect, so before you punch the button requesting to join a friend’s list, make sure you know what you are getting into.
* * *
Along a similar train of thought, readers who make on-line comments, call, e-mail or write to staff members in their professional roles need to recognize that those comments might appear in print or on-line. That might be in this column, on our Opinions page or even on the front page.
While, in most of those cases, the readers aren’t identified, and generally aren’t held up to ridicule, interaction initiated by readers concerning newspaper business now is part of the content of some of our products.
We don’t want to discourage any readers’ comments or complaints, but we want them to realize that contact with our staff members carries inherent permission to write about that interaction.
* * *
For those readers who have not yet explored the options available via The Enterprise’s eEdition, our Web site, BeaumontEnterprise.com, now includes a tutorial video to help readers learn how to navigate the edition’s options.
Simply click here to try it out.
We hope it will be helpful for those readers who would prefer to have someone “talk” them through the process of accessing the eEdition.
Also, a few readers have been disappointed to learn that our eEdition, though an accurate representation of the actual pages of The Enterprise, doesn’t include the Sunday comics, Parade magazine or advertising inserts. We recognize those omissions and hope to eventually get them worked out, though the complicated logistics don’t promise a resolution anytime in the near future.
posted by Sheila Friedeck at 3:04 PM
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