Dave Danforth:
"But a couple of complications intervened. Last year’s Yale Daily editor, Vivian Yee, worked with the New York Times, as many Yale journalists do, and knew of the story. And last year’s opinion editor, Alex Stein, wrote a blistering note printed late last week by the widely respected journalist blogger Jim Romenesko criticizing the Yale paper’s decision.
“We have all been let down,” said Stein, a major in ethics, politics and economics. “In choosing to ignore this story, the News … perpetuated the deceptive, now-shredded narrative of Pat’s ‘heroic choice,’” he continued, noting “the paper and its editor are also complicit in Yale’s culture of secrecy surrounding sexual assault.”
Bloggers responding to the explanation of the student editor respecting privacy in the face of unknown allegations commended him. Some suggested he was the only adult in a roomful of kids. Yet another said the episode “smelled of a coverup” by Yale and its paper.
Expectation of privacy is not usually raised in such cases. It arises from the Constitution’s Bill of Rights, and its protection against unreasonable searches. Privacy is not an explicitly listed right, but court decisions have widely cited it. However, those cases involved police actions. An outgrowth of libel law appears to confer a right to privacy that can be violated even where an allegation is true...."(Read more? Click title)
"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."
2 comments:
This is a very good column by Danforth. I take a bit of a different track. It's more about responsibility in action and on another angle about meeting the public need to know in the changed world of the 24/7 news cycle.
Look at it from the consumer perspective. Picking up the local paper is a routine done every day all over the country. If somebody likes the Enquirer they'll pick that up before the will the New York Times. It's choice. Offering choice doesn't negate the responsibility to put out the news. If it's just a whisper and not really the news yet, our world we live in out here tells the news man it doesn't matter. We'll get the info anyway. Whether we want it or not or whether we're looking for it or not. It's pretty much forced on us. It's a new world.
And that brings us right back to the responsibilities that the news man has. I would be far prefer to see a running ticker on the Aspen Daily website that puts out all the real time whispers and suggestions of news as they happen than be forced for days to turn on the news or pick up the newspaper and read blow by blow hype. Because I know that the Aspen Daily is going to give me a straight up report when the time is right and in the meantime, only if I want to, I can read the innuendo in real time on the 'hot live stream'.
Not being a news guy I don't know how you make any money putting up both. But there has to be a change at some point for the reputable news man to dive into the world of instant information. When young kids like this have their lives ruined or we lose any life to suicide because they've been taken out in the public eye we are unworthy and tainted. There is no excuse for the loss of the ethics that we see in most of today's media.
Every time another one of these kinds of stories of character lynchings via any media comes up, I come back to the same point.
In today's technology and instant gratification the media is not going to change. What has to change are the consequences.
It's too bad that integrity and ethics in journalism really don't play into any of it anymore. Both sides of that coin are overrun by technology in the world of cyber. Nothing is ever going to change that, it's a done deal. The consequences have to come down on the point of being responsible for content and moderation of material. Danforth's right that if you're in a public position of trust or trying to get yourself into that position; you're fair game and up to you to fight back however you choose. But a young kid like this? To have his life taken out on the internet? There's no excuse and law should be in place to enforce accountability. Start putting consequences with teeth into some of this garbage and things will change for the better eventually.
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