Joe Ruiz

I don’t normally have my Windows Media Center turned on in the mornings, but a funny tweet from my friend Brett prompted me to turn on SportsCenter. A few minutes later, I hear the breaking news alert, so I come back to my computer and see the news that Manny Ramirez has been suspended by MLB for 50 games for a positive test of a performance-enhancing substance.

I react to the news, but my obvious first thought is to tweet it out. I dig around for the link from the LA Times — who broke the story and were credited by SportsCenter — and I find the tweet from the @latimes account (not to get off track, but link to your own story, @latimes, not the home page). I retweet @latimes (adding the shortened URL I’d just created to the story) and watch the coverage.

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I’ve put this off for too long and now I’m being pushed to create a social media/networking policy for our newsroom. Some quick background on how I got to this point and why it’s been assigned to me. I’ve got about 15 people in my newsroom using Twitter (and more using Facebook). Well, we’ve started integrating Twitter into our news lives and I had a page created that lists our Twitter accounts (it was opt-in for all involved).

A friend trying to have some fun began speaking about an on-air competitor and was joined in by that competitor’s co-worker. Well, the boss found out and wanted the person either removed from the page (and not associated with our news brand) or to cut it out. Friend asked to be removed and it’s all good now, but now we need a social media/networking policy in place.

I wanted to ask for people’s experiences with crafting or working within a good policy and help in writing our own. Some of my major concerns are Facebook friending potential news sources and tweeting or posting opinions of news sources. I’ve seen potentially bad examples of both before and don’t want it to become an issue with us.

I’ve spoken with a few people and the examples are pretty far apart. One major newspaper doesn’t have a policy and will deal with issues as they arise while some shops have pretty strict policies that may stifle good usage of social media and social networking in newsgathering or personal-professional uses.

I mentioned to a friend last week if she’d like to have breakfast on Wednesday (her day off) once I finish a panel. She agreed, but I got a call today from her asking the particulars (7:30 a.m., on the 18th) and she gently asked if she actually had to listen to me speak. She knows my interests and still listens, but I reminded her I just wanted breakfast after. What does this all mean to you? Nothing in particular, but it gives me a chance to mention that I’ve been invited to speak at the Social Media Breakfast of San Antonio.

In planning for this, I had drinks with two of the panelists (Elaine Wolff of the San Antonio Current and Donna Tuttle of the San Antonio Business Journal — the very talented and web-savvy Laura Lorek of the San Antonio Express-News is the fourth panelist). It was great to get people from different media outlets together and start relating how we’re using Web 2.0 tools to reach our respective audiences. The diversity of our audiences means we’ll use different ideas and I think this will be a great panel. I’m really looking forward to getting ideas from people well-versed and comfortable with social and new media.

The next day will also be interesting. I’m speaking at Texas State University (how can I turn down Old Main?) about being Latino and working in the media for the school’s Dia de la communicacion event as part of the Center for Latino Media’s Latino Media Conference. Honestly, it’s a subject that I enjoy speaking of, especially since I can honestly say there’s been very little downside I’ve witnessed. Granted, it may be that I’ve worked in Texas all my life (and even moreso in San Antonio), but there have been some advantages to being Hispanic and working in the media. Omar Gallaga of the Austin American-Statesman and Lydia Saldaña with Texas Parks & Wildlife will be on the panel. I love reading Omar’s blog and I know I’d be honored to yield the floor to a guy with his knowledge and work.

A couple of days later, it’s the first (as far as I know) San Antonio Media Tweetup. So far, there are about 15 people who’ve told me they’re likely coming (12:30 p.m., 2/21, Olmos Bharmacy). If you’re in town, come on by, media or not… just beware that you’re probably going to hear some war stories. No RSVP is necessary, but I’d like a decent head-count.