One Tweet and You're Out

Just read this tweet from @nprnews: CNN Career Ends After Tweet Praising Hezbollah Cleric http://n.pr/dtpQ17 and thought it was an interesting and valuable reminder for us all.

The short story is 20-year journalist Octavia Nasr was often called on by CNN to provide the Muslim or Arab viewpoint on issues of the Middle East. But when she provided a viewpoint through Twitter that was sympathetic to a Hezbollah cleric, they fired her saying she had "lost her standing as a credible journalist."

Now I'm not a journalism expert, but personal feelings would typically be left out of reports...or at least 10 years ago they would. That's not how media, communications and the public dialogue works anymore, right? Isn't that what this whole class is about? Nonetheless, Tweeting is just as dangerous as sending that angry e-mail so maybe we should use the old school rules of write it, walk away and then look at it again before sending.