Arguably the most comprehensive examination of news media arrives in the form of the annual State of the Media report from the Pew Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. It looks at each platform, trends in creation and consumption, some of the economic conditions and ambitions, and summarizes the environment in which journalism (primarily North American journalism) operates.

This year's report is out, and not surprisingly its focus is on the technological thrust of content delivery. Its findings note a rapid growth in mobile consumption. that social media are not yet large drivers of news, that television news continues to grow, that subscription models will expand, and that privacy considerations will increasingly intersect with newsgathering. It concludes that business models are still far from certain in this new environment and it chides the traditional media industry for not viewing the engineering function as an economic and operational necessity in the digital age.

As for standards, an area of the study's focus is on the reductions in local coverage of civic affairs. It notes that newspapers have been the primary sources of such information and that newsroom cuts have serious consequences for such coverage. The report also speculates that it may be a matter of time before the large technological platforms begin to acquire traditional content providers.

The report has several elements and is generally considered required reading in the industry.

In his latest The Media Equation column, The New York Times' David Carr notes the problem of the "burped up" thought that is Twitter, particularly when it intersects with professional expectations.

Carr cites the recent suspension of CNN's Roland Martin following a Tweet during last week's Super Bowl. Carr writes a thoughtful and self-deprecating look at the challenge of using social media when his employer has high standards. The instant judgment isn't always congruent with the overall judgment.

He concludes that 140 characters makes it difficult to be journalistic, even if it is fun and even if is a requirement.

With a U.S. election looming, Twitter has created a new hub to train journalists on best practices to use the microblogging service.

The @TwitterforNews account shares, in 140 characters or less, tips for journalists. But the hub, Twitter for Newsrooms, is a more thorough guide to researching, reporting, engaging, networking and maintaining security.

"We want to make our tools easier to use so you can focus on your job: finding sources, verifying facts, publishing stories, promoting your work and yourself—and doing all of it faster and faster all the time," the service says on the site.

For nearly two decades of Canadian elections now, it has been evident that technology has overtaken the law in how results are permitted to be transmitted.

The Elections Act does not permit results to be broadcast in any time zone before polls have closed. The reasoning is that Canadians should not be influenced by the results from a time zone whose polls have closed and where results can be gleaned.

Of course, that was a more enforceable matter when there was not an Internet; only Canadians who were phoning across the country could share results. But once the Internet surfaced, people could email and non-Canadian sites could publish results.

Efforts were made to suppress those results and crack down on bloggers and others who transmitted results. The biggest losers were the television networks, which had to run pre-game-type programming until local polls closed, then join the national broadcast in progress. In the west, it often meant joining a telecast with an overall outcome long since resolved.

On Friday it was made clear the law will change by the next federal election. Given that there are staggered polling hours that mitigate  closing times, there shouldn't be much of an influence from east to west. And all of the technological workaround and crackdown will be a thing of the past.

An interesting touch: The federal minister who announced the change Tweeted out the announcement.

Associated Press has amended its social media guidelines to be clearer about the responsibilities inherent in redistributing another account's Tweets.

The news agency says its staff should not ReTweet in a way that makes it appear they are expressing an opinion or support. And a disclaimer that the ReTweets are not their own views does not suffice, AP says.

It is telling staff to avoid the unadorned ReTweet. It argues that implies support. This is in line with many other organizations that view ReTweets as little different than expressions of opinion.

The Supreme Court of Canada this week ruled that the presence of a hyperlink on a website does not confer legal responsibility for its content. It means that sites can link without fear they will be liable.

The ruling has been seen as a bit of a commonsensical acknowledgment of reality --- it would be quite difficult to enforce what happens in Canada and elsewhere as a cultural norm of the Internet --- but also as another effort to interpret the Canadian version of freedom of expression.

The Globe and Mail today offers a feature on the ruling and its implications for journalistic standards.

A new study of how U.S. business journalists use the Internet has some interesting implications for those who evaluate its impact on standards. It's clear that the journalistic use is primarily information-gathering.

The study for the Arketi Group asked business journalists (it isn't clear in the study how many) how they use the Internet. Not surprisingly, 98 per cent said they use it to read news, while 91 per cent use it for sources and ideas. Industry experts, interested parties and corporate websites are the most frequently used sources.

Slightly more than two-thirds (69%) use the Internet for social networking. Journalists are more likely to have Linkedin accounts (92%) than Facebook (85%) or Twitter (84%) accounts.

As for their own creating, a little more than half (53%) blog. Other top uses include consuming webinars, YouTube and Wikis, producing and listening to podcasts and social bookmarking.

The head of the Center for Journalism Ethics at University of Wisconsin in Madison (disclosure: a former colleague at UBC and The Canadian Press) has distilled his academic work on changing ethics into a post for the PBS MediaShift site.

In it, Stephen Ward argues that many concepts associated with journalism ethics --- particularly the "false model" of objectivity --- need redefining in the digital age. He suggests that the "just the facts" notion of objectivity is outdated. Rather, objectivity needs to be a method by which information is gathered and an ideal that helps guide the journalist.

Ward says educators need to find ways to identify ethical guidelines and best practices in all forms of journalism, including perspectival journalism and live-blogging, to ensure that truth-telling and accuracy remain in the picture. The fear that teaching perspectival journalism means lowering standards is wrong, he suggest.

"The issue is not whether certain media formats are inherently unethical. The issue is what norms are appropriate for any specific format," he writes. "We need both comprehensive principles and specific guidelines that allow students to engage new media in a creative but responsible manner."

The British Broadcasting Corp. has issued new guidelines for its journalists when using social media.

They are divided in three: personal use, program use and professional use. There is little that differentiates them from the guidelines for other organizations.

It advises people not to include BBC in any personal title, although they can acknowledge that is where they work. It suggests avoiding anything that identifies political preferences, even in their personal use.  Largely the document is about exercising common sense, recognizing that everything is public, and discouraging anything that might bring BBC into disrepute.

A separate Twitter guideline was published. An element of the guideline is the requirement for a second set of eyes on Tweets.

Facebook has produced a study on practices that enhance page engagement. Its implications are significant as journalists and organizations attempt to expand and entrench audience relationships in that space.

The study found that posts with some personal analysis draw larger views than those without. It also found photo thumbnails drove traffic.

As for the length of this analysis, the study found a curious result: one-liners can draw highly varying responses of up to 15 times the average amount of engagement, but three- and four-line analyses also draw consistently higher engagement.

Posts Thursday through Sunday drew higher engagement, likely due to the greater reading time (and presumably engagement time) on weekends.