We are pleased that Twitter’s new political advertising policy recognizes the role of journalism as the “fourth estate” of civic society, rather than as political advocacy.
News publishers are in the business of reporting on news and events around the world in order to support and maintain an informed citizenry. They absolutely are not political advocacy organizations and should not be treated as such.
We have recommended that all platforms create an exemption for news content, as Twitter has done, as they develop ways to make political advertising more transparent.
We appreciate Twitter’s openness to our industry’s concerns leading up to today’s announcement and we look forward to working with them to better shape the criteria for defining a news organization.
David Chavern is former President & CEO of the News/Media Alliance. Chavern has 30 years of experience in executive strategic and operational roles. Prior to the Alliance, he completed a decade-long tenure at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
