By Dr. Jane Marcellus, Associate Professor
Middle Tennessee State University
Are posts on social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace public or private? Should journalists quote them? What about linking to someone’s social media site in a news story? Does it matter if the person is very young?
These questions have come up in a listserv discussion I’m part of. The original post concerned a local paper’s coverage of a 17-year-old charged in a vehicular homicide case. The paper linked to the 18-year-old victim’s MySpace page, which included photos of him and the motorcycle he was riding when he was killed (http://www.themonitor.com/articles/reflect-28475-bravo-ricardo.html).
A subsequent post concerned a different case, in which a paper had quoted Facebook posts praising a student who had died. The student’s friends were angry; they considered the posts private.
Good reporting or invasion of privacy? The answer isn’t obvious. [Read more...]
Associate professor