Just an update...

In a previous post, I discussed the suicide of Megan Meier who killed herself after an ex-friend's mother, under the pretenses of "Josh," posted and sent cruel messages over MySpace.



Today, according to CNN, there will not be criminal charges filed against the person behind the fake MySpace page not because there is no fault involved, but because there is no way to prove any wrongdoing, as well as no charge to fit the crime.

A Missouri prosecutor said Monday no charges would be sought in the
case of a teen who hanged herself last year after chatting on MySpace, although
he said adults should have prevented the tragedy.
[...]
"There is no way that anybody could know that talking to someone or saying
that you're mean to your friends on the Internet would create a substantial
risk," Banas said. "It certainly created a potential risk and, unfortunately for
the Meiers, that potential became reality. But under the law we just couldn't
show that."
But Banas said that conclusion doesn't mean no one is to blame.
"Regardless of what we can charge or what we can't charge, there is no question
the adults should have said something to stop this," he said.
[...]
Missouri's harassment statute says nothing about the Internet, and the
stalking statute requires repeated conversations, so neither would apply in this
case, Banas said.
The purpose of the neighbor who arranged for the "Josh"
character "was never to cause her emotional harassment that we can prove," Banas
said. Any case would be based on "what we can prove and what a jury would
believe."

Tragic. Hopefully this has drawn enough attention to Internet crimes that we will soon have laws offering even a little bit of protection against this sort of an incident.

Shield laws don't always protect

Santa Barbara Independent's staff reporter is found in contempt of court after refusing to turn over pictures he took following the death of a 15-year-old. A 14-year-old is on trial for his murder.

Even though California has shield laws designed to protect the media from this same scenario, this does not meet the four criteria necessary for absolute protection.

The judge ruling in the case stated the following:

"Any one of these photographs might cause the defense to rethink the way they
were preparing (their case),” he said, such as who they might call to the stand
or who they might impeach.

True enough, I suppose. However, he'll have to fight the attorney for the Independent.

The Independent's attorney, Michael Cooney, said this case was important not
only for the Indy, but for all media organizations. He said if Wellman is
forced
to hand over the photos, it could open the door to more serious
subpoenas in the
future asking for reporters’ or photographers’ testimony
regarding what they may
have seen or who they might have talked to. “We’re
on a slippery slope,” he
said.

Judge Hill said he understood the media's interests, but cited the 1990
Delaney case which concluded that in some circumstances, the defendant’s
federal
Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial preempts state shield law.

[...]

Wellman commented that he was "relieved to hear that Judge Hill understood
that this could set a precedent for us to hand over all our photographs for any
investigation. If you hand over unpublished photos you stop being part of the
media and you start being an arm of the government. If I went onto a scene," he
explained, "and I said, 'This is off the record,' or 'I'm not going to show your
face,' or 'I'm not going to disclose the location,' it's going to be hard to
sell that to someone if they feel I'm going to turn over photos every time I get
subpoenaed."

Well stated Attorney Wellman. Well stated.

Keep watching this case - it could be more important than it seems.

Facebook's privacy violated

Facebook users throughout the world are crying out, feeling their privacy is being violated by Facebook's new advertising methods.

Even though there are changes being made to Beacon, "there is still, though, no global opt-out of the controversial marketing system in which the social network is seeking to link behavior and advertising more tightly," according to an article by Kara Swisher.

Her article also talks about how, ironically and coincidentally, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s personal information somehow ended up on 02138 magazine's Website. We're talking his Social Security number, girlfriend's full name and parents' address, along with "Zuckerberg’s testimony in a court case over whether he stole the idea for Facebook, a personal online journal and also financial documents from 2005 for Facebook."

To nobody's surprise, Facebook instantly "unleash[ed ...] a massive legal fury." The site has since taken down the documents.

However, according to Richard Bradley, executive editor of the magazine, this is exactly what the new Facebook ad movement is doing.

“We believe that we have a legal right to post them online and that you have a
legal right to read them. Meantime, spread the word that a company which plans
to collect and sell personal information about 50 million people doesn’t want
one magazine to do the same about Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg.”

Interesting. Very interesting.

As a Facebook user whose information is now probably floating somewhere on the World Wide Web due to the new money-makin' genius of Zuckerberg, I want to know his info. too.

From a media standpoint, it's only fair.

The new advertising practices Facebook is using are invading the privacy of its users. Publishing purchases and the like is not ok. Tracking cookies is somewhat acceptable - every other website uses cookies to understand its consumers and there is a way to protect yourself if you don't want them. It is possible to disable from Internet properties. You can't disable Facebook's new marketing tool; users are left victimized with their private lives exposed to the world.

Not ok.

Comics need editing too

"Hagar the Horrible" offends fundamentalists (in a headline writing assignment story.)

"Get Fuzzy" offends the Chicago mob (see previous post.)

The comics page needs to be edited for taste; that's easy to see.

However, an article in the Wall Street Journal suggests that, while editing the cartoons, editors should leave in some riskier ones.

"Look at your comics pages like a stock portfolio," advised Ms. Grimley, an assistant managing editor at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "Diversify. You need to have some risky comics," for instance the slightly subversive observational strip "F Minus," and "some safe purchases like the old favorites." Such "safe purchases" would include blue chips like "Blondie," "Beetle Bailey," "Dennis the Menace" and "Hagar the Horrible."

The author acknowledges that changing the lineup in the paper will undoubtedly ruffle some feathers, as any change does, but that it's all for the good of the comic industry.

But much to the chagrin of young artists and writers eager to make their mark, a fair amount of the comic-page real estate is taken up by what they view as old, tired artists and writers -- in some instances, long departed ones. Charles Schulz, for example, died in 2000, but his progeny Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and Snoopy continue to cavort through the funny pages, their antics billed as "Classic Peanuts." Detractors might say stale Peanuts.

I think that the younger artists and writers will be coming up with some good material, funny material - to me.

However, I feel that the classic funnies appeal more to the actual audience of newspapers. These appeal to the older Americans that read the paper every morning over coffee. These appeal to the newspaper's strongest readership.

Do newspapers change the comic pages and start drawing in the younger crowd and upset their faithful readers or do they forgo this opportunity and continue to cater to the people they know will read?

MySpace murder

13-year-old Megan Meier in St. Charles, Mo. hung herself Monday, Oct. 16.

Her story and suicide, under different circumstances, would have just became another tragic statistic. However, because of the reasons behind her death and the story told by one reporter, her death is rocking the media industry.

Two local adults, parents of a former friend of Megan, posed on MySpace as a teenage boy who first befriended Megan and then turned on her. She was so shamed by the adults' false postings--which she thought were made by the boy--that she killed herself. Despite telling the story at great length and in great detail, the local paper declined to identify the offenders "out of consideration for their teenage daughter." - David Crook's Letter to Romenesko

In a story as tragic, and horrific, as the one presented here, the question begs to be answered -- who deserves to remain anonymous. The adults who sent Meiers these terrible messages, posted the cruel bullietins, are not having charges filed against them, mainly due to the fact that there is no charge to fit the crime. Nevertheless, their names have been left out.

Do they really deserve to remain anonymous? Gelf magazine caught up with the reporter who wrote the original story to ask him why.

His answers were short.

Steve Pokin: ... My focus was on the story that appeared in my newspaper. I told that story the best way I could. As part of that—in consultation with my editors—we decided not to name the people behind it.

GM: Were there any other reasons you didn't name names besides your intent to protect the woman's daughter?

SP: That was the main reason.

GM: Were there any others?

SP: I don’t want to go into the other reasons

I want to know. What were the other reasons? I feel that the people behind the fictitious MySpace account are adults. They knew how cruel they were being. They are the reason this little girl is dead.

How did the reporter and his editors decide to leave these people's names out of the story?

And Brian called me "snarky."

Floris, Va.: Lois: As someone who used to cover this sort of event, what is
your view of Hank Steuver's irreverent account of the White House dinner last
night? Any blowback from 1600 Pennsylvania yet? To me, it's just the kind of
snarky reportage we need for these stuffy -- and ultimately non -- events that
are manufactured and controlled by the party in power.

washingtonpost.com: All Fraternite for Sarkozy At a Cozy White House Fete (Post, Nov. 7)

Lois Romano: As irreverent social coverage goes, I think Hank was quite
restrained. Those events can be deadly -- and the media has no access. So
anything a reporter can do to breathe life into the coverage can only help the
reader. I don't think we'll be hearing from the White House on this one. The
have a lot more important fights to fight.

There you have it. There is an important part snarkiness can play within the journalism world.

Do anything to help the reader.

Story originally found on the Washington Post's Post Politics Hour.

Keep the copy editors!

As many journalism companies consider consolidating copy editors (or even doing away with them all together), Andy Bechtel, assistant professor at the University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication, pushes for the localization of them.

Bechtel, a former copy editor for The News and Observer, was part of his paper's localization of copy editors - and felt it was one of his best experiences.

• I was able to work side by side
with reporters whose prior interaction with copy editors consisted of phone
calls from the Raleigh newsroom. I handled all of the stories that came out of
the bureau, writing the headlines and rewriting them as needed between
editions.

• I became the face of copy editing to reporters and the
assigning editor. They congratulated me on a job well done, and on occasion,
questioned why I edited a story a certain way or wrote a headline the way I did.
They called me with a late update or correction to the stories rather than
trying to track down an anonymous editor in Raleigh.

• I became an
expert in local copy, knowing the names and places that popped up in stories
such as the country road that had a funny name.

• I was a fill-in
assignment editor in the evenings, letting the Raleigh office know of breaking
stories. This came in handy, for example, when a school board member abruptly
resigned in a resume-padding scandal. I was able to notify editors in Raleigh in
time to get the story on the front page for the edition that went to Chapel Hill
readers.

This is a prime example of the importance of copy editors, especially as papers become more localized in an effort to survive. This is also a prime example of how copy editors are fighting to survive; they are working overtime to prove their worth.

Bechtel definately accomplishes that here.