This week Twitter got angry.

Again.

It was angry because BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg identified the father of a sick baby who confronted the prime minister as a political activist, embedding one of his tweets in her own.

Then it was angry because people were attacking a journalist for doing her job.

Somewhere between the heated accusations and counter-accusations, however, there was an important lesson to be learned — and a reasonable discussion to be had.

It is a lesson about understanding very different online cultures, about new journalistic practices, and an emerging  dimension of journalistic ethics that few reporters have truly gotten to grips with. Continue reading →