Posting Photos Online: A Blogger's Cautionary Tale

Don't just grab photos from Google Images or other sources:
Choose photos you have the right to use. (Photo credit: Carly Rothman)

Whether you're blogging for The Star-Ledger, on a personal site, or simply sharing images on a social media site like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Tumblr, let Roni Loren's experience be a lesson to you.

Roni did what so many bloggers do: She took photos she found on Google images and used them to illustrate her blog, even crediting the photographer in some cases. She learned the hard way (read: lawsuit) that this is not acceptable. In this detailed blog post, Roni forthrightly shares her experience to help other bloggers learn from her mistakes.

 The bottom line: The ONLY pictures that we as bloggers should be posting are those that we have express permission to use. For Star-Ledger staffers, that means:

 • If you are blogging in a professional capacity, exclusively post photos that you took yourself, images that are in the public domain (more to come in an upcoming post) or that you obtained from our photo department and credited properly.

 • If you're are blogging in a personal capacity, that means photos that you took yourself, photos in the public domain, or for which you received direct permission from the photographer or source -- including The Star-Ledger photo department.

NPR's Experiments with Social Media

"Part of what I do at NPR is to really help our journalists think about how can online communities be used to improve the quality and diversity of our journalism," says Andy Carvin, social media strategist for NPR.org.

In this video, he dictates the innovative approaches he employs at National Public Radio to help cultivate high-quality journalism as well as better engagement with his audience.

ASNE Issues Guide to '10 Best Practices for Social Media'

In this age where both the Twitterverse and Facebookland are becoming serious tools for journalists, The American Society of News Editors is attempting to make it easier for their members who are wrestling with some sticky situations when it comes to the social networks.

They've reviewed the social media rules of leading mainstream news organizations and came away with these 10 key teachable moments:

1. Traditional ethics rules still apply online.
2. Assume everything you write online will become public.
3. Use social media to engage with readers, but professionally.
4. Break news on your website, not on Twitter.
5. Beware of perceptions.
6. Independently authenticate anything found on a social networking site.
7. Always identify yourself as a journalist.
8. Social networks are tools not toys.
9. Be transparent and admit when you’re wrong online.
10. Keep internal deliberations confidential.

Here is a link to the entire 50-page document.

For a lively discussion about these guidelines, click HERE.