By Violet Smale

The internet acts as a sort of formaldehyde preserving who we used to be. We swipe, we post, and we repost, mindlessly accumulating a digital footprint that cannot be erased.

Surely, this is an issue at the forefront of many Gen-Z minds as we enter a cut-throat job market. As we send in our job applications, we ask ourselves: what’s out there that will resurface when my name is Googled?

For present and future journalists, our looming “digital footprint” is a daunting thought.

I am haunted by stories such as Emily Wilder’s 2021 termination by The Associated Press. For anyone unfamiliar with Wilder’s story, let me summarize: the 22 year-old reporter was fired after just two weeks of reporting for the outlet on the grounds of “violating the news outlet’s social media policy,” the Poynter Institute for Media Studies reported. While the details remain somewhat fuzzy, Wilder suspected the surfacing of her past tweets supporting Palestine led to her termination. The AP refutes that claim, instead stating Wilder violated social media guidelines while she was employed by the company.

Whatever instance led to Wilder’s controversial termination by the AP, the case raises an important point for all journalists to consider: we cannot use social media in the same way as everyone else. When one becomes a member of the press, they forsake certain privileges of everyday life. Posting is one of them.

Frankly, I believe it’s unfair that our past follows us around (assuming said “past” isn’t anything discriminatory or harmful). We can’t look into the future to see how one 250-character post will impact our future career. But this is our reality. We have to stop and think: in an age in which the internet has become a mindless pastime, how do we as journalists proceed more thoughtfully?

To clarify what is expected of a journalist’s social media conduct nowadays, I turned to the The Washington Post, a publication that has also had its fair share of social media controversy.

Among The Post’s thorough guidelines, one sentence stood out to me: “Our newsroom’s diversity strengthens our journalism, and Post journalists can bring their backgrounds, identity and experiences to their social accounts. It is not appropriate to use your social media account to advocate for causes, issues, governmental policies or political or judicial outcomes. Also, avoid curating your feeds in ways that suggest you have a partisan point of view on an issue The Post covers.”

When you are hired by an outlet as renowned as The Washington Post, of course you expect to forsake some of the autonomy you have over your social media presence. However, I don’t think we should wait to be hired by a national news outlet to become more conscious and professional in our social media habits. I believe in order to become more consistent journalists, this precedent must be set now, regardless of where one stands in their career.

We cannot erase the past, but going forwarrd we can set—or must set—a new precedent.

-30-