It's Never Too Early to Start Thinking About the Final Project

This semester, the final project is all about you and your dream digital media project.
If you had the money and the staff to launch a digital media outlet or to create an app or to do something that no one in the communications field has ever done before, what would it be?
You need to think outside the box. You will have to create a prototype. You will have to answer some basic questions about your idea.
Here's a good example of thinking different. KCRW is the Public Radio station in Santa Monica. It just launched a YouTube channel that "will stream themed video playlists curated and hosted by the station's DJs."
That's right. Radio DJs curating (collecting and using their judgment and news sense to customize and present the material) video.
Check out the video and start dreaming of what you can do. This is the first step in becoming an entrepreneurial journalist.

Media Ethics and Facebook

On Sept. 16, 2009, Melissa Bailey sent a “friend request” through Facebook, the online social network, to Jessica Del Rocco. Bailey was the managing editor of the New Haven Independent, a nonprofit news website, and Del Rocco was the ex‐girlfriend of the man wanted by police for allegedly murdering a Yale pharmacology student, Annie Le.

 Le had disappeared on Sept. 8, and her body had been found on Sept. 13. The story had become a national media sensation, and the Independent, a grassroots publication with strong ties to New Haven, was
at the forefront of the coverage.

Del Rocco accepted the friend request, giving Bailey access to her Facebook posts known as “status updates.” Here, “behind the wall,” Del Rocco had responded to the news that her ex‐boyfriend, Raymond Clark, was the murder suspect. As Bailey read Del Rocco’s posts, she was riveted—this was great material. Independent reporters also had a six‐year‐old police report filed by Del Rocco in which she alleged that Clark had “forced her to have sex.” The police report alone was big news, but Del Rocco’s comments on Facebook helped to “fill out the picture,” says Bailey, and brought the story up to date.

Bailey could be confident that no other journalist had Del Rocco’s name, much less access to her Facebook posts. But the comments were visible only to her online “friends.” Was it ethical to use them in a news story?

Over the next few weeks, we will be talking about whether Melissa Bailey did the right thing in the way she obtained the Facebook postings by the murder suspect's ex-girlfriend. We will also talk about other ethical issues raised in this case study.

Here is a link to the CNN site the murder of Annie Le and the police investigation that ultimately led to the arrest and conviction of one of Le's co-workers.