To Friend or Not to Friend?  | American Journalism Review  AJR
 Drop Cap From AJR,   October/November 2008  To Friend or Not to
Friend?     Should reporters befriend their sources via social
media?  By Steven Mendoza Mendoza is an AJR editorial
assistant.       When Debra Bowen, California's secretary of
state, sent Sacramento Bee columnist Stuart Leavenworth a friend
request on Facebook, he was faced with a decision. If he
accepted, would he have trouble keeping a professional distance
from his source, or would he simply be trudging on the same
trails reporters always have? Does becoming friends on social
media sites change the reporter-source relationship?  Some
journalists worry that accepting a source's friend request (or
sending one to a source) may create the appearance of a conflict
of interest, but most believe that being connected to a list of
people, frequently by the weakest of threads, does not
compromise their objectivity. In their view, the core tenets and
responsibilities of a reporter to maint