Thursday, December 22, 2005

Hey, reporters. Do you pay attention to MySpace? That's the social-networking website recently purchased by Rupert Murdoch for more than half a billion dollars -- and it's used by lots of young people. Indeed, if you're covering a story about a young person, it's worth checking on MySpace to see if that individual has a MySpace personal page.

A major people story today is that NFL coach Tony Dungy's son, James, has died, apparently of a suicide. As a few bloggers have discovered, James had a MySpace page, it appears.

In such an instance, a MySpace personal page might offer some insights to reporters. James' page includes a list of about a dozen MySpace "friends." These may be people he went to school with or was friends with in the physical world, or they might by purely cyberspace friends and acquaintances. As I write this, one of those friends has even posted a message to James' page saying, " I can't believe your gone..."

MySpace pages are public -- anyone in the world can see them -- yet many young people treat them as though only their friends have access. They often include very personal thoughts from the person authoring the page. An outsider looking at them may feel like a voyeur. Reading James' page, you can get a sense of his personality -- if what he portrayed on the page actually reflects him and was not an act.

How should reporters treat MySpace pages like James'? With care, I'd say. Especially for the living, even though the pages' personal content is open for all to see, it might be inappropriate for a reporter to lift something highly personal and republish it in a media forum without permission.

What about in the case of James, who has passed on? I don't think there's a hard-and-fast answer, but I encourage you to think through the ethical issues. And, critically, try to confirm that the MySpace page was created by the person you're writing about.
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