Howard Owens on community nudity

Howard Owens, GateHouse Media’s chief online guy, has weighed in on the Somerville Journal’s video/photo coverage of the Naked Quad Run at Tufts. An excerpt:

This is no time for community journalism to be squeamish — and keep in mind, we’re talking about a video that shows, essentially, nothing. What it does capture is the spirit of the moment. What it does record for posterity is a real event, in a real community, that is seemingly important to a lot of people in that community.

Isn’t that an essential part of journalism’s role, even if offends some people’s sensibilities, even some of the participants (read the comments on the story)?

Should journalists really be in the role of hiding the truth of what really goes on in a community? I feel like that is what Dan Kennedy is suggesting.

You should read the whole thing. Increasingly, local newspaper editors are going to be dealing with issues like this. And I’m certainly not in favor of “hiding the truth of what really goes on in a community.” Text-only coverage wouldn’t have been as entertaining, but it would have gotten the essential truth out.

By the way, Owens goes slightly astray in referring to the Boston Herald’s Jay Fitzgerald as a blogger, and then criticizing him for not linking to the Journal’s coverage. Fitzgerald wrote his story for the print edition and would have had nothing to do with whether any links were added for the Web.

Owens also slams a Facebook group formed to protest the Journal’s actions, writing, “Think about it — [a] group of students throw privacy concerns to the wind by running around naked in public (even posting pictures to Flickr), and then get upset when that event is covered by a media outlet. How ironic.”

In fact, the Facebook group he links to appears to be a parody. Check out the video.

Friday morning update: Jay responds to Howard: “I didn’t mind the Journal’s coverage. I also like what WickedLocal is doing on the web in general, though I could do without the hair-trigger self-righteousness at the slightest whiff of controversy.”

(Rotten) apples and oranges

Shouldn’t we make a moral distinction between Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, who’ve been accused of taking steroids in order to throw harder and hit the ball farther, and Andy Pettitte and Mo Vaughn, who alleged took human growth hormone so they’d be able to bounce back from injuries more quickly? It seems to me that the former compromised the integrity of the game, whereas the latter was merely dangerous and stupid.

Here’s a PDF of the Mitchell report. Search for Pettitte’s and Vaughn’s names and you’ll see what I mean.

Just because you can …

Universal Hub has the lowdown on the Somerville Journal’s decision to post photos and a video of the Naked Quad Run at Tufts University. The Journal is getting slammed with comments, some of them funny, some of them questioning the Journal’s ethics.

Now, don’t get excited — you won’t find any full frontal nudity, as they used to say on “Monty Python.” And allow me to lower the excitement level a little more by picking up on the ethical theme.

The Journal is part of GateHouse Media, which has unveiled an aggressive online initiative called Wicked Local. GateHouse’s online guru, Howard Owens, is a huge proponent of video. I hope he weighs in on the Tufts shenanigans.

Greg Reibman, editor of the GateHouse territory that includes the Journal, tells Jay Fitzgerald of the Boston Herald: “For students to be shocked that newspapers would show up and take photos, I don’t see how they can be so naive in this day and age.”

My reaction? Neither the video nor the photos are offensive. I don’t think anyone is recognizable except for the guy who’s wrapped himself in the Israeli flag. You can also find slightly more revealing photos of the event at Flickr. (No, I’m not going to help you, but it’s not difficult.)

Still, posting pictures of drunken students running around in their birthday suits is not the sort of thing a community newspaper ought to be doing. Just because you can doesn’t mean that you should.

This isn’t a big deal, but it does illustrate how technology is changing not just the content of journalism but the ethical decision-making that goes into it.

Crowdsourcing Severin

In today’s Boston Herald, Jay Severin writes: “Just this week the august Columbia School of Journalism presented a panel on public speech. A Harvard law professor listed various types of speech that must be made illegal.”

I’d like to track this down. I’ve searched Google and Google News and tried a couple of things on LexisNexis — nothing so far. Does anyone know what Severin is talking about?

Case closed: Media Nation’s readers come through again. Carl noted that there was a panel discussion at Columbia recently featuring the notorious anti-speech activist Catharine MacKinnon. I’d seen the same thing, but she’s not at Harvard. Except that she is: Steve discovered that MacKinnon is the Roscoe Pound Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

Northeastern’s mystery building

Not to engage in any special pleading on Northeastern University’s behalf. But I keep looking at this photo of a building used to illustrate a blog post claiming that NU has one of “The 20 Ugliest College Campuses in the USA,” and I’m convinced that it’s not at Northeastern.

I could be wrong. I’m not the most visually oriented person in the world. But I think I’m right, and commenters on Digg agree with me. If this is the best evidence they’ve got, can Northeastern truly be said to be ugly?

Mystery solved: Jim Chiavelli, editor-in-chief of the Northeastern Voice, tells me that it’s a building on the Dedham campus. My point exactly.

Heavy grading, light blogging

I’m up to my neck in end-of-semester grading, and I’m coming down with a cold. So don’t look for much fresh content this week.

I do want to call your attention to a conference held at Southern New Hampshire University last week on blogging the New Hampshire primary. We ended up talking about everything but that, but that’s OK. The New England News Forum, which sponsored the discussion, has an account here. Christine Stuart of CT News Junkie writes it up here.

Also, Robert Weisman of the Boston Globe reports that Google’s Street View will arrive in Boston today at 10 a.m. I’m figuring there’s a pretty good chance I’ll be captured coming out of the Northeastern Au Bon Pain with a medium regular.

No comeback for Marshall

Peter Kenney of Cape Cod Today and Stephanie Vosk of the Cape Cod Times cover the election to fill two seats on the Mashpee Wampanoag tribal council. No word of disgraced former chairman Glenn Marshall seeking write-in votes, as Kenney had predicted on Saturday — though he does say that Marshall was seen “cheerfully chatting” with his successor, Shawn Hendricks, and others.

But both Kenney and Vosk report that Brailyn “Bright Star” Frye — the tribe’s “Pow-Wow Princess” — was barred from voting even though she is the daughter of a council member and is so involved in tribal activities that she often appears at events in traditional Mashpee garb. Apparently Frye’s status as a voting-eligible member was questioned, although there is no information about the reason yet. Several other members of her family were barred from voting as well.

Vosk: “Multiple sources witnessed Frye’s mother, Cheryl Frye in a verbal spat with tribal council Chairman Shawn Hendricks outside tribal council headquarters yesterday. This is the tribe’s second election since former tribal council Chairman Glenn Marshall was forced to resign after his rape conviction and military lies were exposed. In both elections, tribe members have raised concerns about people who should be on the tribal rolls not being allowed to vote.”

Kenney: “She [Bright Star Frye] apparently fell victim to the mysterious virus that has taken hold of the tribal rolls. This once unknown ailment attacks the central record system of the tribe, rendering it uncertain whether life-long members will be recognized and allowed to vote. Those who oppose tribal leadership appear more likely to fall victim than those who remain silent.”