The Times Group has a new social media policy which mandates that all journalists in the organization will have to create a Twitter account suffixed with the publication they are working with (eg TOI, ET etc). The policy also elaborates that journalist's salaries will be linked to their activity on Twitter and says that scribes must post a minimum of two tweets per day. The development was first reported by NewsLaundry. The best opening line. Love-all.... — Prajwal Hegde (@PrajwalHegdeTOI) September 23, 2015 Emails seen by MediaNama elaborate on the company's online and social strategy and mandate that journalists salaries will be linked to breaking stories on WhatsApp. The email also said that the Times Group is discontinuing their Speed News service which carries real-time updates from reporters via mobile. The email emphasizes that online contributions will carry 80% weightage for the total variable pay (TVP), a performance based salary bonus staff get. From the email: - TOI edit TVP will have a weightage of 80% for online contributions, 10% for Times View and 10% for error score. - The online contribution score will be further broken up as 25% for breaking news via WhatsApp (posted on TOI online), 25% for web first articles, 25% for Twitter and 5% for online author comments. - The target for online contribution per reporter will be 2 breaking news via WhatsApp, 2 web first articles and a minimum of 2 online author comments per week. Each reporter will need to do as many online author comments as they are…
