As news outlets have been experimenting with how to incorporate social media into the news process, with some even creating their own guidelines, the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) has issued a guide with best practices for social media use.

ASNE's "10 Best Practices for Social Media: Helpful Guidelines for News Organizations" is based on the association's review of social media policies at mainstream news outlets.

Such best practices are important, ASNE said in a statement, because "social media platforms continue to emerge as essential newsgathering tools. They offer exciting opportunities for reporters to collect information and for news organizations to expand their reach. But they also carry challenges and risks. Enforcing Draconian rules hampers creativity and discourages the spirit of openness that flourishes on social networks. But allowing an uncontrolled free-for-all opens the floodgates to potential problems and leaves news organizations vulnerable for the comments of employees who tweet before they think."

According to the report, the "10 key takeaways" are:

1. Traditional ethics rules still apply online.

2. Assume everything you write online will become public.

3. Use social media to engage with readers, but professionally.

4. Break news on your website, not on Twitter.

5. Beware of perceptions.

6. Independently authenticate anything found on a social networking site.

7. Always identify yourself as a journalist.

8. Social networks are tools not toys.

9. Be transparent and admit when you’re wrong online.

10. Keep internal deliberations confidential.

Steve Buttry, director of community engagement for TBD, said ASNE "offers good advice on social media," but he also was critical, arguing the social media best practices outlined in the report emphasized fear too much. "Fear of social media is strong in newsrooms, especially among top leaders, so this document is loaded with unnecessary warnings and discouragement," he wrote. "The fact is that social media can also be excellent tools that help you beat journalists who are stuck in traditional reporting. And social media are essential now to executing your job duties."

GigaOM's Mathew Ingram also said the guidelines focus "far too much on the bad things that can happen, and the lesson seems to be: Don’t allow your journalists to be human, under any circumstances." This is a holdover, Ingram wrote, from "the days when “objectivity” was the highest goal that a journalist could aspire to...but there is an argument to be made that transparency and accountability to one’s readers is far more important than maintaining some theoretical Potemkin village of objectivity. And it might just produce better journalism too."

Similarly, LostRemote blogger Cory Bergman criticized the practice of breaking news on the website, not Twitter. As Bergman wrote, "My recommendation would be for reporters to quickly tip their newsrooms first and tweet second — without waiting for the story to appear on the site. First is first, regardless of where it’s posted. Then follow up with a tweet with a link when the story is posted. (And post it FAST. Just hammer out a couple lines and keep updating it as you go.) News is a process, not a finished product."

Joy Mayer of the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri also provided an analysis of each of the 10 practices.

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