You can easily make the argument that young journalists need to learn that online verbal diarrhea has consequences in a business where you're expected to maintain at least a modicum of objectivity and personal distance from the audience....
In case you’re unaware of Shea Allen’s story, up until a few days ago she was an investigative reporter in Huntsville, Alabama, probably doing her fair share of personally satisfying work but I guarantee suffering through all the various indignities that go along with being a reporter in Huntsville, Alabama. That ended, both the good and bad, as soon as she published a post to her personal blog called “Confessions of a Red-Headed Reporter,” which both laid out and ever-so-gently riffed on the real life of a small-market reporter. This was the result...
Cautionary social media tale and lessons for a reporter who laid it all out in her personal blog posts. While tongue-in-cheek in some cases, many of the claims were actually potential cause for firing individually, let alone as a group. Biggest problem? Not good for the TV brand and certainly not credibility building for the journalist.