It’s been a rough month and a half for Matthew Keys. In March, Reuters’s now-former deputy social media editor was indicted by the US Justice Department, accused of sharing a past employer’s network information with hackers. Reuters suspended him (with pay) shortly thereafter, and Keys, 26, spent the last month tweeting news much like he did before the suspension, with his Reuters title still on his Twitter profile.
The Boston Marathon bombing proved to be Keys’s final undoing; he lashed out at Reuters social media editor Anthony De Rosa, accusing his boss of tweet plagiarism. Keys also took a lot of heat for erroneously tweeting that one of the bombing suspects was in custody and live-tweeting the Boston police scanner after the police department had asked the media to stop. Yesterday, Keys announced (on Twitter, of course) that his 14-month employment with Reuters had come to an end. He replied to my questions via email.
Were you surprised when you got the phone call on Monday morning? Were you surprised when you were suspended last month?
The suspension came as a surprise. The phone call this morning was unfortunate, but not unexpected.
What’s the last month been like for you?
Very tiring. After the indictment came down, my roommates kicked me out of the apartment. With nowhere else to go, I packed the trunk of my car with the stuff I wanted to take, had it shipped, booked a plane ticket, and moved back to California. I’ll be here for a little while.
What went wrong with your Boston coverage, if anything?
Nothing. Like the networks and wires, I had anonymous sources within law enforcement. Unlike the networks and the wires, my sources were solid. Not once did I have to retract anything my sources told me. Reuters is faulting me for not adhering to a request published by other news organizations. As far as I’m aware, there was no request by law enforcement on social media and no request by law enforcement by way of a press release or media statement asking for people on Twitter to not tweet emergency scanner traffic.
Reuters fired you because of your tweets about Boston, but you also gained about 10,000 followers during that time. What do you think that means?
I gained 10,000 followers in 24 hours covering the manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspect, but to be fair, my follower count dropped by about 1,000 followers after Friday. People tune in to various Twitter feeds during breaking news situations. My follower count always goes up when big news breaks, though it’s rare it goes up that much. I assume the same happens for other news aggregators and social media journalists who cover similar stories. If you’re lucky, the new followers will stick around, but it’s not unreasonable to assume some tune in for the big news event and then tune out when it’s over.
You’ve been about as open about this whole thing as anyone I’ve ever seen, from the indictment until now. On one hand, the transparency is refreshing. On the other, every time you tweet or post or what have you, you run the risk of getting in more trouble. Do the rewards outweigh the risks? And do you think, if you had just stopped tweeting entirely when the suspension began, that you’d still be employed by Reuters?
A manager with Reuters told me on Friday the company would have been perfectly happy if I had stopped tweeting when the suspension was handed down. That would have been the more conservative approach, but I don’t think it would have made a difference. The company was looking for a reason to dispose of me.
When the indictment came down, the first thing I said publicly is that I was okay and that things would go back to normal the next day. Still, there were people who worried about me. I hope by tweeting the news and writing posts—-committing acts of journalism even through tough times—-it alleviates some of the worry others have.
Part of me really wants to side with the kid. He's young and he's plugged in. He took a platform and elevated its relevance beyond management's expectations and kept it there. It sounds like he has a legitimate complaint about the company's warning system as his firing approached, but he still comes off as brutally naive... Just because you don't physically sign a confidentiality or non-compete agreement shouldn't mean you're free to expose your company's internal materials to a third-party all willy-nilly. Use your common sense. There's probably a reason the company has instituted digital gatekeepers to safeguard their network information. The same applies to companies that aren't news organizations... toy manufacturers, retail outlets, publishers, and so forth. Just because you're granted access to something, doesn't mean you have the legal right to share it. Sounds funny, but it's true.
#1 Posted by Aaron B., CJR on Thu 25 Apr 2013 at 05:49 PM
Hi Aaron, appreciate the comment. Just a note: The document I tweeted out isn't internal (all internal communications at Thomson Reuters are clearly marked as such), and many of our policies appear online. In fact, if you wanted to, you could read through the entire Thomson Reuters Handbook of Journalism online (I only found out about this recently).
As for the memos that were directed at me: It would have been great if my personnel file had been kept personal and confidential. But on March 14th, Reuters published a story that contained information found in my personnel file. I didn't know personnel files were fair game at Reuters, but if they are, I guess it's better the information comes from me instead of some unnamed source in HR.
#2 Posted by Matthew Keys, CJR on Mon 29 Apr 2013 at 11:01 PM
Does the Columbia School of Journalism still teach journalism ethics? The Trust Principles are basic ethics like not misrepresenting yourself to get a story, and that's what Keys acknowledges he did in the IRC channel with Anonymous. Although he learned of crimes being planned and executed and is even shown to participate in hacks of media outlets, he didn't report the crimes to authorities and seemed to make himself part of the story. He both admits he was the person in the account leading to him and then implies his legal defense will somehow prove it wasn't really him, that he was "hacked".
Then you have the obvious discrepancies in Keys' account of the Boston police scanner story; elsewhere, he says he would have complied and stop tweeting had he known authorities had made this request, but got the notice hours after it was made -- but then complied with it. Here, he implies you don't have to comply if you're a fabulous social media editor.
Then, if you criticize Matthew Keys legitimately for his questionable lack of morals, his defiant bragging of breaching journalistic ethics, white-washing of Anonymous, he heckles you, as he has been doing to me:
http://3dblogger.typepad.com/wired_state/2013/03/whats-wrong-with-matthew-keys.html
Keys wasn't fired for tweeting a police scanner report that multiple other journalists and bloggers tweeted, myself included, but because he had already built up a record of nasty defiance of management and of rules by then.
One shouldn't require "training" in basic principles that should be part of your character before you are hired. When we see the gushing treatment Keys gets in this piece, we can see where the problems are rooted -- in journalism schools that in the rush to be part of the fad of social media seem to have discarded their long-established foundations for credibility.
#3 Posted by Catherine Fitzpatrick, CJR on Fri 3 May 2013 at 11:03 PM
Catherine -- are you really suggesting that I have given Matthew Keys "gushing treatment?" Please read some of my earlier articles about him before you jump to that conclusion.
#4 Posted by Sara Morrison, CJR on Mon 6 May 2013 at 09:52 AM
Matthew Keys is a pitiful, sad attention-whore with some obvious mental health issues. The fact that you gave him a forum and made him believe he is somehow an important enough "media figure" to merit an interview in the CJR is not a positive indicator of your judgement.
He is a common, maladjusted internet troll who somehow finagled his way to his 15 minutes of very small beer "fame" which is now over for good. No media organization will touch this chucklehead with his record all over the internet and archives. Perhaps when he gets out of prison in 10 years or so we might run across him bussing our table at a Dennys.
His biggest punishment will come in prison, with no internet or text messages except for very restricted email to a limited number of people. At least we get 110 years without this troll on the internet.
#5 Posted by Carol Greenstein, CJR on Sun 2 Jun 2013 at 06:29 PM