Recently, a Washington Post Editor tweeted his personal opinion about health care reform. That Tweet went viral and raised questions about his credibility. Last week, the Washington Post issued new guidelines for its staffers who use social networking tools.

A section of the post policy reads: "Post journalists must refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything - including photographs or video - that could be perceived as reflecting political racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism that could be used to tarnish our journalistic credibility."

KOMU New Media Director Jen Reeves has her own take on journalists tweeting.

"Some journalism camps say it's actually a good thing for journalists to be out there and open about their opinions, because when they go out and report that contentious subject they'll end up being more balanced because they're going to go out of their way to get both sides," Reeves said.

At KOMU, our journalists also use Twitter, Facebook and a tool called Ning to keep you informed.

"KOMU has an expectation for all of its reporters to use Twitter when they're out reporting," Reeves said. "They each have their own individual accounts, and that way we aren't overly-managing our reporters' content online. What we are doing is we re-tweet content. So what re-tweet means, we are sharing information that we think our viewers are interested in. So we'll look at what all of our reporters are saying and share the nuggets of information on the KOMU news account that we think are most important."