Twitter Trouble for the NBC and CBS News Divisions

Considering the worldwide TV reach of both NBC News and CBS News, whatever is happening at any given moment on their Twitter feeds would seem insignificant. But both networks have just been dealt public relations Twitter headaches -- even with the social network's 140-character limit.

NBC News was the victim of a Twitter account hacking on Friday. The result was a false tweet that an airliner had crashed at Ground Zero in New York City. Given the tenth anniversary observances of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the tweets created needless alarm for the account's nearly 130,000 followers.

The mischief lasted for about ten minutes, with subsequent posts, until a group called "The Script Kiddies" appeared to claim responsibility. After that, Twitter suspended the account.

A harmless prank? Hardly. MSNBC reports that the FBI is now investigating. NBC says only three executives knew the password to post information.

On the very same day, the CBSNews.com web show What's Trending was left apologizing for an erroneous tweet that said Apple founder Steve Jobs had died. Considering Jobs had recently stepped down as Apple CEO and has suffered health issues, the mistake was especially egregious.

As a result, CBS has ended its partnership with the What's Trending program, which was not a part of the news division, according to PC Magazine. Still, it had a prominent place on the CBS News website, which meant that it was easy for users to think CBS News itself had made the error.

As media companies have added Twitter and Facebook accounts to reach audiences in new ways, policies need to be updated to make sure standards of accuracy and fairness are maintained. In addition, steps should be taken to minimize the damage if security is compromised. Here are some guidelines to follow:

• Despite the informality of social media, make sure all posts are correct and contain attribution, even with Twitter's character limit
• If an outside company is providing content under your brand umbrella, examine its editorial policies to ensure they reflect your own
• If your social media site is hacked, have a crisis response plan in place to reduce the damage by knowing who is able to get the information removed quickly

In NBC's case, the phony tweets were taken so seriously that anchor Brian Williams read a statement on NBC Nightly News. He apologized, even though NBC News was the victim.

The all-powerful networks have learned a painful lesson. A brief bit of erroneous text spread through social media has the ability to inflict damage if it's not contained and purged editorially, legally, technologically and through effective public relations. It almost makes putting out a nightly television broadcast look simple by comparison.

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