AFP bans use of Wikipedia and Facebook as sources

Posted by Jean Yves Chainon on January 21, 2008 at 10:55 AM

Agence France Presse banned its reporters from using Facebook and Wikipedia as sources last week, as news organizations still struggle to safely use online (re)sources.

Pierre Lesourd, AFP London’s bureau chief, said that the organization’s internal deontology prevented journalists from relying on a number of online ‘news’ sources, in response to a question by the Lord’s Committee on Media Ownership and the News.

"We have the same thing, updated last week, for Facebook because of the incident with Bilawal Bhutto in Oxford,” said Lesourd.

"Some newspapers picked up pictures on Facebook about Mr Bhutto, which turned out to be fake.

"We are trying to be vigilant about it but, obviously, everyday a new virtual source appears. We have to be very careful."

Clarifying this point, Lesourd said that journalists couldn’t use these sites as sole sources without referring to other more reliable sources.

Source: journalism.co.uk