Reporters scrum former Nova Scotia premier Rodney MacDonald in this file photo (CBC)

From time to time, we share our thoughts and rationale for the way in which we have covered stories. What you may not know is that in the course of the decision-making process, our first stop is at our CBC Journalistic Standards and Practices (JSP) manual, which we fondly call our little blue book.

It is an odd-shaped binder that contains the policies that guide our behaviour and practices. Those of you who have had reason to question our work will know that the CBC Ombudsman uses the JSP while reviewing our work. It is our guide, but it is also our commitment to abide by the highest standards of journalism.

Well, we at CBC are saying good-bye to the little blue book.

We want to let you know that the CBC Radio-Canada Board of Directors has just approved a brand-new Journalistic Standards and Practices guide, which like the old one is available to the public in an online version. We hope you will find this one clearer and easier to use. Please click here and check it out.

We are proud of the nearly two years of work that went into this revision. The core values and principles remain the same, but the document has been updated to guide our journalists through the world of 21st-century journalism.

There is virtually no longer a "news cycle" out there — reaction is instantaneous. Services such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr provide a torrent of information. This has made our job easier in some ways, but it has created unique challenges in verifying information. The new JSP tries to address the challenges of the social media universe.

We have also completely reorganized the policies, loosely basing them around reporters' beats, so you will find sections on war reporting, crime reporting, investigative reporting and consumer reporting. And like the old JSP, it lays out the terms and conditions for some of the more controversial tools of journalism, such as surprise interviews and the use of hidden cameras.

We are very proud of the work we have done, but we wanted to make sure it was the best there was. As the public broadcaster, we believe we should set the standard.

So we asked for reviews from Pierre Trudel, director of the Centre for Media Studies and the L.R. Wilson chair for information technology and e-commerce law at the Université de Montréal, and Robert Steele, distinguished professor of journalism ethics at DePauw University and Nelson Poynter Scholar for Journalism Values at the Poynter Institute. Their reports say CBC's Standards and Practices meet or exceed industry standards.

Our goal is to make this a living document. It is a tool to help our journalists make smart, ethical decisions in situations where there are many shades of grey, and to guide them to carry out the best public-service journalism we can provide.