John Robinson of the News and Record and Ted Vaden of the News and Observer try navigating the questions I raised in my note to Matt Dees earlier this week, questions that were asked again by others in response to News and Observer Editor Melanie Sill’s blog entry on covering blogs as a part of a story. The question is of course which parts of which story? Or as JR restates the thread [taken from Ted Vaden’s NandO piece – pj]: “Can publication of online information be an invasion of privacy? What’s the age cutoff for publishing children’s blogs? How aware is the young person of the effect of publication?”
I’m beginning to see that Phil Meyer and I will disagree on much of this as my own thoughts are getting better formed. I continue to be informed by Fred Stutzman’s study of privacy expectations and of what is actually revealed on the web by students using Facebook as I think about the ethical questions surrounding journalistic uses of information found in personal blogs.