Journalists Can't Hide News Anymore

Hugh Pickens writes: "Robert Niles at the Online Journalism Review comments on the story about the 13-year-old girl who took her own life after making friends with a boy she'd met on MySpace who turned on her. The boy didn't exist. 'He' was the creation of the mother of one of the girl's former friends. But the newspaper didn't name the woman, citing concerns for *her* teen daughter. Bloggers went nuts, and soon uncovered the woman's name, her address, phone number and business registration records and plastered them all over the Web. "The lessons for journalists? First, we can't restrict access to information anymore. The crowd will work together to find whatever we withhold," wrote Niles. "Second, I wonder if that the decision to withhold the other mother's name didn't help enflame the audience, by frustrating it and provoking it to do the work of discovering her identity." Here are links to the original story on the girl's suicide, to one of the bloggers who uncovered the woman's identity, and to another look at the journalistic issues involved in naming names."

You can still hide information

[davidwr]

You just have to make sure nobody notices the information is missing.

Nobody would investigate a story like

Jane Doe, 13, passed away Monday night. Jane was a student at America Junior High. Counselors are at the school today and will remain as long as needed. Funeral arrangements are pending.

When or when not?

[tinkertim]

There are some instances where our curiosity pales in importance to an individual's need for privacy, such as cases that involve some kind of sex abuse. As this article clearly illustrates, children are quite often cruel.

Journalists (of all kinds) must take care to protect the identity of victims. This means not only refraining from publishing the name of the victim (or their parents), you must also take care to not publish information that would allow those who know the victim to draw clear conclusions.

Wit