Oregonian taking a lot of heat from readers for this one. What do you think?

What *is* the editorial responsibility for not publishing?

If you don't bring to light the Boston case, more children get abused.

If you don't bring to light this case ... what exactly? Feels like a lot of people are good at repeating rules they learned in j-school without understanding the deeper purposes journalism serves in society.

 

I think you're smart enough to answer your own question. I'm smart enough not to get into an extended debate about what I think you already know, or at least smart enough not to try to explain to you what I'm fairly sure you should know (given the way you ended your post).

 

OK, I'll be more specific:

I'm arguing that there is no editorial responsibility to publish this. The public gains from this knowledge are extremely negligible, given that repeat offenses are not a major issue with this type of crime. You'd need an overwhelming public interest to outweigh the fact that he was a minor when it happened and thus should be given some degree of protection, and that doesn't exist here.

 

That's a good, well-stated argument. To me, three words trump it: registered sex offender.

 

I can live with that. As long as some sort of ethical calculus is involved, it's being approached the right way.

 

This is a fair point. Seems like a no-brainer at a distance.

But this is a fair point, too. Seems like there's no real news value here other than sensationalism.

Which gets me to my point ...

I'm not sure there is a right or wrong answer on running this story or not running it. Probably should be left in the hands of the managing editor and publisher. Still, this is by far one of the more trickier situations I've ever seen when it comes to whether it should run and what the relevancy of it really is.

 

Oooops, I meant Oregon State. Just a typo. That's why I need a proof reader for my copy.

 

This is an excellent response.

 

Come on people, you don't believe this bullshit the Oregonian is selling do you really?

Someone tipped the Oregonian off, probably the mother of the victim. The Oregonian, to protect their anonymous source, is saying they run background checks on profile subjects and this just happened to pop up.

I'm calling Bullshit.

 

JD, excellent points. But I'm still not sure what point was served, since the legal process in a juvenile case had been concluded more than two years ago.

As far as access goes, unmonitored 1-on-1 interviews in all sports are routine at OSU, which is generally very accommodating to media. Heck, when Riley was football coach the local talk radio show did its noon-2 p.m. program right from practice during the fall. That has changed under Gary Andersen but players are still universally available for 1-on-1s.

 

How expensive is it really? There are all kinds of people finding web search engines that go through public records. They are available at per instance or by subscription prices, and I would imagine most newspapers have enough reason to have subscriptions to these serves to make the legwork relatively cheap and easy.

 

I'm guessing they got tipped off that it might be fruitful in this case.