More from J. Todd Foster

I think instead of "illegal," maybe he should have written "against newsaper policy." I had thought of that point myself -- I'm sure the paper has discussions and probably a clear protocol about what crimes they do and don't mention juveniles, and a $20 ordinance violation certainly wouldn't be enough to get your name in. However, Jackass T. Foster might have made an exception in this case just to prove a point, or to have material for his next self-aggrandizing column.

There was a long time in America when you could do something stupid, something really stupid even, and if you were 16 and didn't really hurt anybody, that stupid thing didn't follow you around as you matured. I'm glad I was 16 during that time.

 

I think what NCGolf means is that if a kid gets arrested and charged as a juvenile, the court case is sealed and the name isn't released to the public. Plenty of times, I've seen in my papers' police reports that the name is withheld.

That doesn't mean that if a reporter actually sees a kid committing a crime, he can't name the kid anyways in his report. There's that little thing called Freedom of the Press. In this case, the reporter saw the kid taking his leak, and wrote about it, with his name, and he could do so even if the kid was charged.

And to follow up with my first post, it also was a low blow by Foster to report the superintendent's phone message. Even though the super should have known better since, I would assume, he has dealt with the media before, that he should think that anything he says is on the record, still, Foster should have contacted him beforehand to make sure that it was. The super may not have intended for his phone message to be used for publication.

 

Spnited, I think Ragu is related to J. Todd Foster. That's the only way to explain his post and others like it.

 

Drip and spnited joining forces. Perfect! An sj adventure replete with misspellings!

 

The ignorance of media law is surprising. It's not illegal for a newspaper to name a juvenile charged with a crime. It's not illegal to name rape victims. There are very few things that a newspaper can publish that would be illegal.

 

Baron, you brought up a good point about the super. But I agree with J. Todd.
It's pretty obvious the super didn't want to talk, he wanted to vent - hence the message. I think he made the suicidal shit up. The kid can whip it out in public for a $20 bet, but when's named in the pasper he's suicidal? Yeah, I know kids don't always think about the consequences, but I doubt he was suicidal - ast least not becasuse of this incident.
And the super ought to be savvy enough to not leave a message like that and beleive it is off the record.

 

Is this surprising? Consider the WAPO column and the fact that he hired Jim Cnockaert.

 

You can barely find two practicing journalists who agree on precisely what "off the record" means. I don't think you can ask it of the superintendent of a small school district.

 

Orville, Do you really believe that the super's (or anyone else's) voice mail message is meant for publication without calling him back and talking to him "on the record"?

Jackass Todd Foster is way off base for publishing a phone message without calling the super back.

 

Considering it's Jackass, not surprising.

 

No, but I believe if I call a newspaper editor or reporter and leave a voicemail, offering (nasty) comments on a subject of a story I should not be surprised if it shows up in an article or column. Not. Smart.


Our education reporter brought up a good point this morning.
If the paper felt they had to name the kid, because everybody in community knew it did they put the story on the Internet?
Yes they did.
So now the kid's name is not only all over the community it is a WWW event. What if some patriotic whack job gets it in his head this kid is a terrorist or an unAmerican assclown who needs a lesson, which could lead to death threats against the kid and his family.
But putting this story on the internet, this story goes viral. And kid's infamy spreads well beyond the community.


I can see both sides of the argument, but I am starting to come around to the idea that discretion might have been the better path.

 

Isn't it ironic that we have twice as much talk about this guy as there is in the thread about Ray Melick, who actually is/was well-respected by just about everyone in the field? In a way, it's sad we're giving this guy all this attention because that's all he's about -- no matter what damage it does to his newspaper's reputation.