Earlier this week, the New York Times introduced social media guidelines for its journalists. The rules were designed to ensure the paper’s ‘reputation for neutrality’ isn’t damaged by anything its writers might say on Twitter. Is it time for the Economist to do the same? Mr S. only asks because one of the magazine’s Brexit-bashing writers appears to have taken it upon himself to launch his own pro-EU political party overnight. Jeremy Cliffe, the Economist’s Berlin Bureau chief, tweeted late last night to say he was considering balancing his day job with a new foray into politics:
The result was ‘The Radicals’, a party with the electorally questionable commitments to ditch the immigration cap, share Trident with Germany, stay in the single market – and make Manchester Britain’s capital city.
Alas, it wasn’t to be. Just 12 hours after it was launched, the party has already lost its leader, with Cliffe having apparently come to the realisation that leading a political movement might not be compatible with his day job as a journalist:
The New York Times’ guidelines warn its journalists not to ‘express partisan opinions, promote political views, endorse candidates…or do anything else that undercuts The Times’s journalistic reputation’. Wise words…
A border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia which goes back more than a century has once again erupted in fatal clashes, leading to diplomatic alarm and appeals for international help. There has long been a schism between the two countries over an arbitrarily-drawn, 817-kilometre border conceived by the French in 1907. The present confrontation began
Steerpike
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