“Twitter isn’t real life” is a frequent refrain that proves itself wrong time and time again. Many disabled people have developed robust community as more and more spaces have been made prohibitive to them with loosening COVID restrictions. Sports fans bond over their teams’ successes and failures. Journalists have found sources, friendships, and career opportunities through the website — and had their jobs impacted by what they say online.

Last month Dallas Morning News reporter Meghan Mangrum tweeted at Dallas mayor Eric Johnson, who criticized local media for never covering “good news”: “Bruh, national news is always going to chase the trend. Cultivate relationships with quality local news partnerships.”

Three days later, she was fired — a day after she held a protest against working conditions at the newsroom — and was told it was for violating social media policy, without further elaboration. Whether or not Mangrum was fired solely for her tweet, or because of her organizing activity, it underscores a phenomenon other reporters have already learned: What gets said online doesn’t always stay there. 

Social media policies are shaped by generational expectations of journalism and professionalism, ideas which often chafe against the same expectation from employers to develop relationships with sources and communities by being oneself on social media. Mangrum’s story also exemplifies the nuances inherent in the growing importance of journalist participation in and engagement with social media, including the way AAVE gets disseminated without credit across TikTok, Twitter, and their companions. 

While Mangrum, who is white, used “bruh” in several contexts elsewhere, and the word has been popularized in recent years (take the “Girls who say bruh vs. Girls who say hiii” memes littered across Twitter from 2018 onward), it’s still a word originating in AAVE. And that’s a broader conversation about where the language we use comes from, and who gets to use it. If Mangrum wasn’t able to use “bruh,” what does that mean for Black reporters who speak AAVE? 

The litigation over whether “Black Lives Matter” was too “political” a statement to express on social media erased reporters’ identities by trying to draw a dedicated line between the personal and political, and often acted as an attempt to silence or otherwise sideline Black journalists in covering a critical national story.

For marginalized people, the personal has always been political. And while it’s not a requirement to have a social media account to use for journalism, it’s a way to reach parts of one’s community that may not be as accessible in person and to share work on a broader, if not more ephemeral, scale.

Many journalists kept Twitter through Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform, not without reason.

Employer social media surveillance is counterproductive: if you really want your employees’ full selves at work, that doesn’t mean nitpicking their social media. Especially with the increased expectation that each tweet is part of your work, too. 

– James Salanga

Smart Brevity: Who suffers when information is oversimplified? For The Objective, Ivan Fernandez reviewed Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More With Less, by Axios founders Mike Allen, Jim Vandehei, and Roy Schwartz. “It’s the powerful who take center-stage in the book,” Fernandez says of the examples used to demonstrate the importance of a writing style that emphasizes “less is more.” While brevity has its uses in journalism, he argues, there are stories deserving of the full breadth of nuance writing can offer. Read more here.

A job board spreadsheet in preparation of layoffs. Estefania Mitre, a social visuals producer at NPR, invited people to share job openings in light of the NPR layoffs, which began yesterday and will result in 10% of the organization’s staff losing their jobs. NPR has announced it is cutting four of its podcasts: Invisibilia, Everyone & Their Mom, Louder Than a Riot, and Rough Translation. Submit a job opening here.

Supporting local news means supporting democracy. For the New York Times, Jamelle Bouie notes that disinformation, partisan silos and similar phenomena aren’t the most erosive forces for democracy. Instead, it’s the decline of local news that has contributed to a reduced sense of community — and a lack of context for what’s happening in local government, Bouie argues. “Whenever there is a reform movement, there are newspapers and journalists associated with that reform movement,” he writes. Read more here.

The number of prison-based newspapers is growing. Incarcerated journalists who want to tell stories from their facilities have slowly been getting more opportunities to do so. In her reporting, Hanaa’ Tameez shares a directory of prison-based papers showing that there are at least 24 in 12 states, four of which were started in 2022. Some of the incarcerated journalists’ work can be found here. Read the full story here.

Videos of police brutality aren’t awakening a “reckoning”. “Either this country is addicted to reckoning or it is addicted to the psychic need to view images of violence inflicted on Black people,” Anthony Conwright writes for The New Republic. Conwright questions the utility of showcasing these videos every time a Black person suffers at the hands of police, arguing that they further garner complacency: Violence won’t happen to me because I’m not Black. Read more here.

4 days until the… Poynter’s Telling the Stories of Faith and the Faithful registration deadline. This free, in-person event takes place in Los Angeles during mid-April, and gives journalists — whether or not they report on religion — a crash course on how to build sources with faith-based communities and how to consider different faith angles for stories.

6 days until the … Diverse Women in Media Initiative hosted by the National Association of Latino Independent Producers in Los Angeles (West Hollywood to be specific). This member-exclusive event brings women across various sectors of the media industry to host panels on the direction of journalism and how reporters can build their connections within it.

7 days until the … Maynard 200 Fellowship Deadline, which is on March 31st. The Maynard Institute’s fellowship kicks off in June to help train journalists and storytellers to dismantle structural racism in a white-dominated media industry. The tuition-free program also offers one-on-one mentorship opportunities from industry experts and helps connect mentees to various opportunities in journalism. 

8 days until the … 2023 D.C. Journalism Job Fair hosted by Georgetown University’s Master of Professional Studies in Journalism program, and organized in conjunction with the Washington, D.C., chapters of NAHJ, NABJ, AAJA, NLGJA, the Society of Professional Journalists, and the Journalism & Women Symposium. The event costs $10-$25 to attend. 

Looking for a job? Here are a few places to look: INN | ONA | JournalismJobs.com | 10 Jobs and a Dog | NABJ | AAJA | NAHJ | NLGJA | @WritersofColor | MEO Jobs | Freelance Journalist Rates | Source Jobs | Opportunities of the Week ($) | West Coast Media Jobs

How about a style guide? Trans Journalist Association | Diversity Style Guide | Tribal Nations Media Guide | NABJ Style Guide | Disability Language Style Guide | AAJA Guide to Covering Asian Pacific America | NAHJ Cultural Competence Handbook |  SPJ Race & Gender Hotline | AMEJA Media Resource Guide | The Press in Prison | The Conscious Style Guide

Thanks for reading. We’ll have more for you soon. 

This issue is by James Salanga with editing by Gabe Schneider and Nawar Nemeh.