November 2005

Duncanville weekly publishes story on explicit teen blog

Reporters and editors at Duncanville Today found out more about local schoolchildren than they bargained for while working on a story on school safety. The newspaper discovered a blog, a Web journal, where students as young as 13 had been posting their thoughts and feelings about a shooting after a Duncanville High School football game.

The blog had explicit language and sexual content and the newspaper staff struggled with covering a story that had obvious reader interest but sensitive issues involving minors. The students used screen names on the blog but their real names were available also on the Internet.

“Your main concern is whether your use of those names would be an invasion of privacy by disclosing intimate or embarrassing information that was not public,” media law attorney David Donaldson said. “The screen names that they use are the names that they give on the Internet: a place that has become the electronic equivalent of the town square. There is nothing more public than that.

“You can’t be guilty of invasion of privacy when what you use is what is already public.”

Blogging is not unique to Duncanville or metropolitan areas. Anyone with a computer can set up a Web page. But the case illustrates the increasing role the Internet is playing in daily life and how a newspaper can take a proactive step in informing their communities about what goes on online.

Below is Duncanville Today’s account of how it handled the story, which was part four in a series on student safety. The editor’s note accompanied stories by Angel Jenkins Moore titled “It’s 24/7 on the Internet: Do you know where your children are?” and “Parents: It could be time to unlock key to your child’s web diary.”

Parental warning: Explicit material in page 3 story

By ROBIN GOOCH
Today Newspapers Managing Editor

Duncanville Today’s pursuit of a story in a continuing series on school safety has revealed a truth that many readers may find objectionable.

While obtaining details of the recent shooting after a Duncanville High School football game, we became aware of a web log where local students discuss their feelings in stark terms.

As a result we present a related story uncut and unpolished in an effort to show what some of today’s youth face and how parents, and the entire community, must bridge the gap and protect this generation.

The story is not for the weak-hearted or the easily offended. It contains vulgarity and adult situations and brings to light a loss of innocence, sharing shocking comments from some at least as young as 13.

Many parents may say, “This is not my child.” Maybe it’s not, but it is at least the children your son or daughter is attending school with and is perhaps influenced by.

The story, and any research of your own, will show many teens also use their corner of the Internet positively, discussing school activities, their love of their friends and their commitment to God.

If you choose to read the stories, printed on page 3 and continued on page 12, I encourage you to write me with your impressions either by mail, P.O. Box 381029, Duncanville, 75138, or by e-mail at manager@todaynewspapers.net.

Duncanville Today has long prided itself on being a family-friendly newspaper. We will continue to be so, but from time-to-time, an issue arises that must be addressed in the harshest terms.

We will not step back from our responsibility to present to you the truth, even when we know it is unpalatable. We owe you that much and look forward to hearing your remarks.