Reuters has sat somewhat silently in the background of all the hub bub surrounding whether Google should be able to index stories and make money off that content through advertising. That has been an AP fight for the most part. The strategy has helped Reuters, at least in my eyes, because by staying out of the fray they are implying that they are about journalism first. That’s my take and yours may differ which is fine.

What the news organization has not done until yesterday is put out an official social media policy but that’s now complete. Mashable reports

Last night, Reuters released their social media policy, which includes instructing journalists to avoid exposing bias online and tells them specifically not to “scoop the wire” by breaking stories on Twitter.

The strict instruction makes it clear that even though news continually breaks on Twitter first — especially in disaster scenarios — Reuters journalists are to break their stories first via the wire and not on Twitter.

The social media policy in question also addresses a number of other Twitter, Facebook, and online concerns, offering up instructions and recommendations whenever possible.

The relationship between breaking news, social media and traditional news outlets is difficult to define. In one way you never want to limit the ability to gather and report news but the integrity of the news has to be kept in place.

Hence the rub. While social media may allow for someone to get a “scoop” there is the real danger that it ends up being a scoop of crap versus the truth or a clearer picture of a circumstance. Seeing something happen live is very visceral and exciting but it may only be one small portion of the truth and, in fact, could be completely unrepresentative of the totality of a situation. As a result people are shaping opinions and digesting the news based on a “gut reaction”. That’s important but so is gathering all of the facts and then forming a complete picture of a situation, not just a snapshot opinion. Waiting for a wire version of an event at least allows for some more time to gather data and tell fact from fiction.

So having said all of that I think that Reuters and any other hard news outlet is doing something that is essential as we move forward in the new world order of content creation and reality. The integrity of the news has to be preserved and just because social media outlets make it happen quickly in no way makes it more accurate. In fact, it will likely be less so.

Since there will be no way to stop the Twitter journalism that is evolving I hope that the main news reporting entities realize that they could be even MORE important in the future if they still take the time to vet information and then tell the whole story behind the pictures and events that are reported “on the scene”. While I know this is a conservative approach I think it will be critical moving forward for consumers to be able to judge what is fantastic against what is really happening and why it happened.

Maybe that’s going to be the real purpose of traditional news organizations going forward. To present a truly informed version of events and to help us put together the pieces of situations that are always much more complicated than 140 characters or a photo can convey. I think that is necessary and vital.

How does Reuters plan to do this? Through telling journalists to keep their personal stuff personal and to not display any bias that could boomerang on them. Also, having tweets looked at by someone else to ensure everything is above board is discussed. Read the policy if for nothing else to be informed .

So what do you think? Is the scoop more important than the whole truth? Is there danger in 140 character versions of events that are often far more complex? How can traditional news organizations maintain the balance that protects integrity but remains timely in the new world order of “report as you go”?