The distinction between the private and the professional has largely broken down online

Reuter's new handbook warns journalists not to be over reliant on social media for news gathering purposes.

Its latest guidelines warn that

Internet reporting is nothing more than applying the principles of sound journalism to the sometimes unusual situations thrown up in the virtual world. The same standards of sourcing, identification and verification apply. Apply the same precautions online that you would use in other forms of news gathering and do not use anything from the Internet that is not sourced in such a way that you can verify where it came from.

But perhaps it is this comment that is the most pertinent

The distinction between the private and the professional has largely broken down online and you should assume that your professional and personal social media activity will be treated as one no matter how hard you try to keep them separate.

New look for Reuters

According to this morning's FT,Reuters is about to announce an overhaul of its website

in an effort to showcase a wider range of content from the former Thomson Corp professional businesses.

says the paper

"This is designed to be an ad-supported property, but as we introduce a greater range of content we will be looking for a range of different business models." The new site will highlight "dashboards" of data from across the group's divisions.

Reuters closes on second life

Apparently Reuters has closed its news bureau at second life.

And straight from the horses mouth its pseudo presence tells us the reason

So what happened? Is Second Life dying? No, but the buzz is gone. For all the sound and fury over recent price hikes and layoffs at Linden Lab, Second Life has a community of fanatically loyal users. Since Linden Lab derives its revenue from user fees, not advertisements, Second Life is much more likely to survive the Web 2.0 shakeout than most other startups.

Reuters in tribute to Iraq reporters

Reuters has launched a tribute to the journalists working in Iraq on the fifth anniversary of the invasion.

Entitled Bearing witness it pays tribute to the 100 journalists,correspondents,photographers and support staff.