Journalist Steps Over The Line?

[Nolerama]

STL Post-Dispatch journalist gets IP address of "vulgar" commenter on site, follows IP address to employer, leading to an employee resigning his/her position .

 

[Touch Of Death]

STL Post-Dispatch journalist gets IP address of "vulgar" commenter on site, follows IP address to employer, leading to an employee resigning his/her position .

I couldn't view the story, but anyone can follow an IP address. If you have to resign, then so be it. assume your mother is always watching.
Sean

 

[Carol]

Don't say anything on the internet you don't want the whole world to know about.

I find it a bit strange that there seems to be more hullabaloo over someone resolving an IP address than with a schoolteacher posting about eating ***** while at school.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

The number of people I have reported to their ISPs or employers in 10 years is maybe a dozen.....all for doing much much more than posting a smart *** response.

I think the paper over reacted. Bigtime.

 

[Archangel M]

I think the problem lies in who gets reported and who doesn't. Absent a policy from the paper, all we have here are individual reporters who to get to decide who gets in trouble for posting and who does not.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I woulda just blocked the IP and moved on with my day.

 

[Carol]

I do think its an extreme measure, but its not just a matter of what the paper saw. Bill Mattocks has mentioned before that he lost his job for dropping the F bomb on (I think) a blog, one of his colleagues saw it and reported it to his boss. Some online comments, such as the ones on KenpoNet, display eveyrone's IP along with the content of the post. If someone wanted to figure out my employer they could, if they tried hard enough. :idunno:

What if the reporter noticed that someone from a local Rectory posted a comment about eating d**k, and reporting the issue caused a priest or a youth worker to resign on the spot?

Would the reporter face an equal amount of scorn? Or heralded as a hero for dropping a dime and protecting the children?

 

[Archangel M]

So..what. We look up every post we find offensive or maybe even simply disagree with? This should have been by paper policy. Not the whims or sensitivities of an individual reporter.

I think that minus his employers permission HE overstepped his "work bounds" as much as the teacher did.

 

[Nolerama]

I think it's a breach in journalistic integrity, especially coming from the editor of the social media department of a major regional newspaper.

Having a Comment box invites people to say what's on their minds.

If an editor feels that the comment is vulgar, he/she should be capable of hitting the Delete button.

But I think that's as far as it should go.

Say, a reporter quoted a source, and the source said something racist/sexist/etc, but totally unrelated to that story, should the reporter go an extra step, and seek out that source's work supervisor for something that is deemed "unacceptable" to the reporter?

It violates the decreasing amount of trust that the public has with the American media.

 

[Carol]

I suspect the privacy policy of the Post-Dispatch, and perhaps several other newspapers, is being reviewed as we speak.

http://www.stltoday.com/help/privacy-policy

 

[grydth]

Object lesson in why one never posts from the work PC ......

Both the "journalist" and the "teacher" are losers, wouldn't want anything to do with either one.

 

[David43515]

I would expect better from a teacher (even though I am one). However, I think the journalist needs to grow a bit thicker skin. If I went overboard every time I heard someone make a vulgar comment I wouldn`t have time to worry about much else.

 

[Bruno@MT]

I know it's a pet phrase of mine, but rule number 1 clearly applies here as well:

Rule number 1 when posting anything on the net (or via email):
Do not write anything down that you wouldn't want your partner, kids, family, employer, banker, district attorney, worst enemy or anyone else to find out.

 

[Jade Tigress]

Reminds of a hot news story that's been going on here:

In May, Stone filed a petition for pre-suit discovery -- a precursor to a lawsuit -- against Paddock Publications, owner of the Daily Herald. It was shortly after Stone, a first-time political candidate, won a hotly contested village trustee election in Buffalo Grove.

In a pre-election story about a questionable campaign flier that appeared online, some negative comments about Stone were posted on the "reader comments" page. Stone's son, who was a freshman in high school at the time, went online to defend his mother. As is common practice, the commenters identified themselves only by made up "user names" rather than their real names.

After some back-and-forth bickering between Stone's son and one specific poster, Stone claims the person made "defamatory and injurious statements" toward her son. The exact comments were not part of the court record. On the advice of her attorneys, Stone declined to elaborate on what was written.

Stone demanded the Daily Herald management reveal the person's identity. They refused, citing the privacy policy in its Web site's terms of service agreement, said Daily Herald attorney John Kloecker.

Stone continued her pursuit in court. The Daily Herald attorneys fought to protect the reader's privacy, but the judge ruled against the newspaper, Kloecker said.

As required, the Daily Herald turned over the person's e-mail address and all of the other identifying information it had, including the man's e-mail, age, ZIP code and Internet Protocol (IP) address.

Article.
There are lots of follow up articles in the archives.

 

[Gordon Nore]

I would expect better from a teacher (even though I am one). However, I think the journalist needs to grow a bit thicker skin. If I went overboard every time I heard someone make a vulgar comment I wouldn`t have time to worry about much else.

I know it's a pet phrase of mine, but rule number 1 clearly applies here as well:

Rule number 1 when posting anything on the net (or via email):
Do not write anything down that you wouldn't want your partner, kids, family, employer, banker, district attorney, worst enemy or anyone else to find out.

I echo both positions. I'm having trouble focusing on the issue of whether the journalist crossed the line because I can't get over how foolish the teacher was. My board has an acceptable use policy regarding technology that is made know to all staff, students, and their families. My teaching specialties are librarianship and computers, so I've spent a lot of time with students trying to make them aware of the serious consequences of using technology.

While I don't want to infer too much from the brief story, I do note that the teacher resigned instead of being fired. Makes me think the school and school board had a clear policy, and they had him dead to rights. I'm puzzled though that the principal reported back to the journalist on the resignation. This is a personnel matter, and normally admins would be tight lipped. Was the principal or school board under the impression that the paper was going to report on the incident and were thus doing damage control?

As for the reporter, I don't think he had any journalistic reason to trace the comment. As distasteful as the remark was, he asked for people's comments, which they are free to give by name or anonymously.

 

[Grenadier]

If your workplace has a "no profanity" policy, then you should abide by it.

If your workplace has a "don't use our computers for posting profane or other inappropriate material," then you should abide by that policy as well. Nobody forced you into your choice of workplace.

On the other hand, Mr. Greenbaum looks like a two-faced individual. He claims that he doesn't want to take drastic steps, such as banning a *single* IP address (that would have stopped the employee from using that particular computer), yet here he is, wasting all of this time, gloating about the incident, and getting someone fired, over a very trivial thing.

He claims that he wasn't out to gloat about this incident, and claims that he regrets it ever got this far. I really doubt that he means it; rather, that he's regretful that he received negative feedback from the readers.

This incident should have simply blown over.

If I saw someone speeding on the highway, despite there being a good number of "SPEED LIMIT 60" signs, should I capture them on tape, and then notify the authorities?

If someone asked for a software license key on a forum, does that mean I should immediately call Microsoft (or whatever company), and have them start a piracy investigation?

If someone accidentally bumps into a lady, and an arm happens to accidentally hit her in the upper chest, should I phone the police about a possible inappropriate touching charge?

While I may be "morally right" in doing any of the above, it's just not worth the precious calories.

Now, if the guilty party from the original post had sent threatening letters, flooded the e-mail box with vulgar messages, etc., then that's a different magnitude of story, indeed. However, all that happened were two postings.

 

[Jenny_in_Chico]

If you read the article, and then scroll down and read the comments left by readers, you will see the following:
---------------------------------------------

Nov 20 2009
11:25 AM
Anyone who would go out of his way to punish someone over a harmless joke shouldn't be in charge of social media. The comment in question has been discovered thanks to outraged privacy advocates and is as follows:
"I have eaten many different animals (or at least parts of them), including rattlesnake, crocodile, alligator, iguana,
turtle, and many different molluscs, arthropods, echinoids, and whatnot from sea or river. I have also eaten squirrel,
bear, dog, and cat. So, I can say I have eaten *****, and you can interpret or misinterpret it any way you want. Oh,
and woof-woof, too."

--------------------------------------------
I don't know if this was truly the comment left by the school teacher, but if it was then it isn't particularly vulgar. Taken as a whole, I find the comment to be quite amusing. He was stupid for posting while at work, but I don't think that he deserved to be fired.

 

[Carol]

I don't know if this was truly the comment left by the school teacher, but if it was then it isn't particularly vulgar. Taken as a whole, I find the comment to be quite amusing. He was stupid for posting while at work, but I don't think that he deserved to be fired.

He wasn't fired, he resigned.

 

[Jenny_in_Chico]

He wasn't fired, he resigned.

With respect, Carol, I don't think that he was confronted with the situation and then nobly said "For the good of the children, I will resign my position!". He was fired, and everyone agreed to call it a resignation to either save face or avoid lawsuits, or perhaps to allow him to receive some sort of benefits. Of course, we have no evidence for this, so it is just my gut talking.

 

[Carol]

With respect, Carol, I don't think that he was confronted with the situation and then nobly said "For the good of the children, I will resign my position!". He was fired, and everyone agreed to call it a resignation to either save face or avoid lawsuits, or perhaps to allow him to receive some sort of benefits. Of course, we have no evidence for this, so it is just my gut talking.

I suspect your gut is accurate.

I didn't mean to infer that the teacher was doing something noble. The only reason why I brought up the distinction is because not all conduct violations can lead to a teacher being termed. In some cases they can be disciplined and keep their job, but naturally that is not an option if they resign on the spot. I also realize that s/he may been facing a situation that was quit-or-be-fired, regardless of the wording.

I do wonder what impact this will have on public discourse in our communities. Personally I know I've learned more about issues by reading a story in my local paper and then reading the comments made by other readers, be they supportive or critical of the matter being discussed. If this incident (or this incident along with others over time) have the result of reducing/silencing public discourse, that is not a good thing.