MySpace Suicide -- And Us

OK, 202ers. Go back and read the previous post on MySpace and the comments to it.
One of the commenters has posted personal numbers and harsh commentary on the Drews. The commenter is anonymous (s/he shows a first name but no profile ... s/he could be in our class but also could be a member of the public following our blog).
Does this change your thoughts about the case overall? What do I do as moderator ... take it down or let it live? We talked in lecture and discussion about journalism, blogs and the space in between. What is it we're doing here? We're commenting on journalism but are our comments journalism? And what responsibilities do we have?

MySpace Suicide

A paper is taking heat for this story about a teen's suicide after she was targeted in a scheme to set up a fake MySpace character. The character was used to gather information that was then used against her socially. She killed herself about a year ago.
The story is tragic, but the paper is being criticized not for running it, but for not naming the adults involved in the fake account.
Read the piece and tell me what you think. Then read the comments posted at the bottom and tell me if that alters your view. Then go to some blogs (here's one), which have outed the offending adults, and follow the comment threads. What do those add to the equation?
I have pretty strong feelings on this one ...

Prof and Plagiarism?

A storm brewing at Mizzou, one of the country's most prominent J-Schools. A retired professor, John Merrill, wrote a column for the newspaper, which is run by the school. He used two quotes from another story without attributing them.
The paper publicly reprimanded him by taking his column away.
It's brought an interesting set of responses from ethicists and bloggers.
So is this plagiarism or something else? If it's something else, what is it? And how should it be handled? What are the "thou shalt nots" of media ethics? What are the grayer areas?

Mom Song

have gotten a bunch of requests for the youtube video i mentioned yesterday during the viral marketing discussion.

here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxT5NwQUtVM

how many times have you heard these lines from your mom???

tnx,
kc

Fat and the Farm Bill

Here's a suggested post from a 202er. I would STRONGLY encourage you to familiarize yourselves with this issue. It's going to be getting a lot of media attention. Took a long time to start bubbling, but now it will boil.

Katy,
I'm not sure if anyone's still reading the blog now that the quizzes are over, but on the chance that they are, it might be good to mention the Farm Bill 2007 that's currently going through the senate. The legislation is extremely important, and, unfortunately, it hasn't gotten much attention (at least that I've seen) besides a few op-eds (and an upcoming documentary called King Corn). Ultimately, the Farm Bill is the reason corn syrup is in everything we eat, and part of the reason Africa loses two dollars to trade deficit for every dollar in aid it receives. Billions and billions of dollars of subsidies go to massive agri-business corporations (I think 75 percent of the subsidies go to 3 companies), and it affects everything: nutrition, local farming,
the environment (that shipping costs money) and global poverty. It doesn't seem like a very interesting topic, but it has a huge impact, and people should know about it (especially since this is a very agricultural state). Here are a couple of those op-eds:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/opinion/15kleckner.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/22/AR2007102201656.html

plus a NYT magazine feature a while back:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/magazine/22wwlnlede.t.html

Print Circulation

Here's a great note from a 202er to supplement Monday's lecture:

Hi Katy,
In case you haven’t read this yet, I saw this article this morning. Relates to what you lectured on yesterday on the Journal Sentinel losing customers regardless of their strong Web site.

<http://www.jsonline.com/watch/?watch=20&date=11/5/2007&id=31384>http://www.jsonline.com/watch/?watch=20&date=11/5/2007&id=31384

Thanks,

In the News

What are you reading about this week? Last quiz = last chance. Offer it up. I may go full throttle and ask six current events questions. What might those look like?

OJ & KC

OK, a 202-er writes to try to suck Katy Culver into the OJ Simpson story, to wit:
____________
I stumbled upon this story today:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,307757,00.html

Does this make this case more interesting now? Was he framed?....if the FBI new about it, isn't it suspicious that they let it happen? Will this get big? I know you hate O.J. in the news...but i'm having trouble deciding whether this is a big, important issue...because it seems highly suspicious, yet i've heard nothing else and it's not very 'breaking.' It seems this was highly preventable...not that i personally wouldn't love to see O.J. rot in prison.
_____________

Y'all know my feelings on overblown tales of woe involving Orenthal James Simpson. So is this news now? And if so, how so?