Failed Strategy: Using Trade Secret Laws to Assert Ownership of Employees' Social Media Accounts in the Journalism Industry

Abstract

It’s the policy of an increasing number of news outlets to retain ownership of the professional social media accounts of their reporters. In the first case of its kind in the United States, one media company took a former employee to court over the question of ownership. The Roanoke Times in Virginia filed a suit in 2018 against a former sports reporter, alleging a breach of its social media policy. The reporter, who left his position at The Times for a competing news outlet, took with him the Twitter account he had used as part of his work with the outlet. This article explores a host of uncharted legal implications pertinent to this case and argues that utilizing trade secret laws to assert ownership of an employee’s account(s), a strategy used in The Times case and several other lawsuits, is an ill-fitted approach. Social media accounts and their associated followers are not “secret,” no matter the industry. A comprehensive policy could prevent legal action in the first place by providing employees with guidelines that address a myriad of issues discussed in this paper. The authors offer provisions of a policy that would protect news outlets while also acknowledging the importance of social media accounts to the livelihood of journalists and to the free flow of information from journalists to the public.