For my assignment this time around I am to envision myself as a reporter working for the Boulder Daily Camera who was just assigned a story about a CU English Professor who was dismissed because his name was listed on a child pornography Web site as a frequent client. According to the scenario, the professor denies that his name is listed on the site. The rest of my prompt is as follows:
Is it normal operational procedure to list all relevant external links. Based upon your readings and understanding of communication law, would you post the link to the child pornography site? Why or why not? What principles do you use in your decision? What trade-offs are present in the rationale behind your decision?
Well, based upon my readings and understanding of communication law, if I was a Daily Camera reporter I would not post the link to the child pornography site whatsoever. I say this because based on my education in media law - and due to my own personal moral and ethical codes - under no circumstances ever is the publication of child pornography acceptable. I understand in this case the story would not contain any child porn in its text, but it would provide a link, acting as the direct middleman in connecting person to child porn.
In James Foust's chapter titled "Legal and Ethical Issues" in his textbook "Online Journalism", Foust describes the terms obscenity and indecency and their relation to media law. He defines obscenity as referring to "a narrow range of material that describes or displays sexual material in a manner designed to cause arousal and lacks artistic, literary or scientific value." He defines indecency as "a much broader range of sexual and nonsexual material, including certain words, nudity or other things that could offend manners or morals." Obscenity, as I have learned throughout my past media law studies and through Foust's chapter yet again, is never legal in any type of media.
Based on Foust's definition of obscenity and indecency, as a journalist I would deem child pornography, whether publishing it directly or even providing for readers a link which provides full access to it, both indecent and obscene. Since obscenity is never allowed in any media forum than there is no way legally that I would include a link to the child pornography site in my story, nor would I do so morally.
The trade-offs present in my rationale which supports my decision fall along the lines of validity in the story itself. If the professor denies having his name on the Web site at all, and the only evidence that I put forth in my online story are other secondary sources confirming his name, many readers may not believe the story to be true. Or they may question the validity of the entire publication as if the stories aren't going to provide readers with stark evidence of controversial news, then how do they know that the information is true.
For me however, these trade-offs are still worth not placing the link within the story. The ramifications for actually hyperlinking the child pornography site to the story to me would be greater both legally and definitely morally, as I feel as though the story would be contradicting itself granting readers the ability to do the exact thing the CU English professor is being called out for. As a journalist, my job is to dig deep into stories to report factual and transparent news and in a story such as this, I believe that other avenues could be used in writing an accurate, valid story without involving a media law no-no such as any type of link to a child pornography site.
