Prosecutors Claim 'Innocence Project' Journalism Students Paid Witnesses

from the gets-a-bit-more-complicated... dept

Last month, we thought it was quite excessive that states' attorneys in Illinois were asking for all sorts of information on the students who were involved in the Medill Innocence Project -- a journalism school investigative reporting effort that has helped free wrongly convicted individuals. The prosecutors were asking for information on the students' grades and private notes, which seemed to go beyond what seemed reasonable. However, now the prosecutors are claiming that the students may have paid witnesses for their interviews, which could raise questions about their authenticity (found via Romenesko). Of course, reading the details, it's not so clear cut. The students admit that they paid for the guy's cab fare, but it sounds like there was money left over from the cash they gave the cabbie, and he gave it to the interview subject (who then used it to buy drugs). That certainly makes it a little more clear as to why prosecutors were looking for more info, but it still seems like the overall request went beyond what was reasonable. It certainly looks more like an intimidation tactic than any attempt to get to the bottom of the case.

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Prosecutors Subpoena Tons Of Info On Student Journalists Who Provided Information To Reopen Murder Case

from the chilling-effects dept

Northwestern University's Medill Innocence Project is a very cool program for journalism students, teaching them investigative reporting techniques in the real world, by having them investigate potential wrongful convictions. As the program's website notes, it's helped free 11 wrongfully convicted individuals, five of whom had been on death row. However, some prosecutors don't really like being proven incorrect. In one of its latest projects, the Innocence Project has provided enough evidence to reopen the case of Anthony McKinney, who has been in jail for 31 years for allegedly killing a security guard.

However, state's attorneys in Illinois are now subpoenaing all sorts of excess information on the students themselves, including their grades, the grading criteria, student evaluations, and private notes and and off-the-record interviews that were used in gathering the information necessary for the case. While the state's attorney Anita Alvarez is defending this overreaching subpoena effort, it has many concerned that this is really just an attempt to intimidate the students and create a serious chilling effect on this type of investigative research. It's difficult to see how the student's grades make any difference at all in whether or not McKinney is innocent or guilty.

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Smart Use Of Facebook By College Helps Students

from the it's-a-tool dept

Earlier this year, a study claiming that students who used Facebook had lower grades got a lot of attention, with the typical fear mongering and moral panics coming out of the woodwork. But, of course, correlation does not mean causation, and Facebook is just a tool. For schools that use it in a smart way, perhaps it could do good. Reader Ben Ketteridge points us to the news of how Gloucestershire College has embraced Facebook to help students do better. It's kept the staff and faculty better in touch with students and reduced drop out rates, so far. It's also helped students work together in virtual study groups, something that other colleges have complained was a form of cheating. It's nice to see at least some higher education institutions looking at ways to use tools to improve the overall experience, rather than just complaining about such online services.

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Disney Appreciation Student Group Told They Can't Get Together To Watch Disney Movies

from the hurray-for-IP-law dept

Via Copycense, we learn that the students who formed the Disney Movie Appreciation Club at Washington University in St. Louis recently had to shut down the club due to threats of IP infringement, because the students were gathering together to watch the legally obtained movies, without getting a proper license for showing it to a larger group of people (rather than just a few people). The link above decries how separated IP laws have become from their intended purpose when a group of true fans of Disney movies can't even get together to watch them, without having to get some special license:

It makes no more sense to prohibit the viewing of a movie by multiple people than it does to prohibit the viewing of a portrait by multiple people. The people watching these films are not evil, conniving scammers out to claim Disney's films as their own. They are simply fans of Disney movies who want to take a break from studying and relax with a few friends.... Ultimately, however, I am not on a crusade against all forms of copyright. I just want to watch my movies in peace.

And, another generation of students is learning how copyright is so often abused, not to create incentives for content creation, but as a tool of control.

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Journalist: Oh No! Student Journalists Will Destroy Journalism!

from the oh-please dept

So for the last few years, all we keep hearing about from professional journalists is how there is less and less reporting going on, and how we'll all miss "real" reporting once it's gone. They complain that without new business models journalism itself is doomed. Leave aside how ridiculous all of that is (and, yes, it's totally ridiculous), when a new project comes along that will enable more reporting in the San Francisco Bay Area, via a partnership between radio station KQED and journalism students at Berkeley, along come the professional reporters complaining about how this is the death of journalism and must be stopped. That's the view of the East Bay Express's Robert Gammon. Why? Well, because it involves students instead of pro journalists, and thus is unfair competition:

The venture also threatens traditional news media in the Bay Area, because it will rely on 120 journalism students at Cal who will work for free. The massive free-labor workforce will give the new venture a huge advantage over established Bay Area media organizations that depend on paid, veteran journalists to gather and put together news stories.

I read that and all I can think is, Mr. Gammon, did you really just mean to suggest that your years of experience and professional connections are so worthless that a group of students will automatically beat you in the marketplace? Because that's what he said. After we keep being told how pro journalists are so important, and all their experience, knowledge and reporting chops differentiates them from the unwashed masses, here is a guy who is flat-out admitting that he has no advantage over some pure amateurs.

Let's hope UC Berkeley and KQED seriously rethink this plan before it goes live early next year. The idea of a non-profit news organization has merit, but using what amounts to slave labor to make it happen is bad for journalism.

So, let me see if I get this straight. Things have been really bad because there were fewer reporters working on the news, and we'll all miss them when they're gone... but as soon as anyone new enters the market, it will be bad for journalism? And even if the journalism is done by students who have no experience, the amazing pros simply won't be able to compete? Yeah, that's believable.

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Student Files Lawsuit After Teacher Demands Facebook Password, Logs Into Account & Distributes Private Messages

from the wow dept

Remember the story recently about how Bozeman, Montana was asking all applicants for city jobs to hand over their social networking passwords so city officials could log into their accounts? After some widespread complaints, the city smartly backed down, but apparently they're not the only ones demanding passwords. CitMediaLaw points us to a lawsuit filed in Mississippi, concerning a high school student who turned over her Facebook password at the demand of a teacher at the school. The teacher proceeded to log into her account, read her private messages and then send them around to others at the school, causing a lot of problems for the girl.

Apparently, the teacher had originally demanded usernames and passwords to Facebook from a bunch of students to see if they were doing anything illegal (drugs, drinking, etc.), which is already pretty questionable from a privacy standpoint (and violates Facebooks' terms of service). But to then use the contents of private communication to publicly humiliate the girl and punish her for her private messages seems to go way beyond what is both right and legal. Other students at the school had quickly deleted their Facebook profiles when the teacher demanded their passwords, but this girl chose not to, but certainly never expected what followed. It's amazing that any teacher would think that they have a right to demand access to private social networking accounts and then to make use of the content of private messages in that manner.

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Do School Administrators Not Realize Students Have Access To The Internet?

from the why-bother? dept

We've had a few stories recently of school administrators trying to stop the publication of a school publication because they didn't like the contents. In some cases, the students just route around the administrator and publish online. But, an even bigger point is, what good do the administrators think they're doing in trying to censor content in the first place? Take, for example, the story of a principal blocking the publication of a student magazine at Orange High School in Orange, California. Apparently, the principal was upset about a cover story about tattoos, claiming (bizarrely) that the photo on the cover, of a (faux) full back tattoo that included the magazine's name ("Pulp") and the school's mascot, glorified "gangster" culture, specifically because the text was spelled out in old English lettering. Really.

However, the details show that the real concern had nothing to do with "gang" issues. The principal wanted the article to include extra information about how tattoos were permanent and not easily removed. As Lee Baker at the Citizen Media Law Project points out:

Although it may be helpful for students to be reminded of the difficulty of tattoo removal, such a concern should not give a school principal the legal right to suppress student speech.

Still, the bigger issue from my perspective is understanding exactly who the principal think he's preventing from "harm" in this action. It's not as if students don't know about tattoos or how to find out more info on tattoos. Those students have access to this wonderful thing we call "the internet." They can also probably walk into any number of tattoo parlors. Blocking the publication in a school magazine because the principal doesn't like tattoos hardly seems likely to actually stop anyone from getting a tattoo.

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Student Wins Against Professor's Threats Over Posting Code Online

from the code-is-speech dept

Reader Kyle Brady writes in to tell us his own story about how he fought back against one of his Computer Science professors, who threatened to fail him because he posted the code he wrote online. Kyle is a CS student, and only posted the code after the assignments were due (so it wasn't helping other students). He did so because he figured it might help him find a job to show examples of his coding skills and also because he believes in the value of sharing code. But his professor claimed that it was a violation of school policies, potentially "cheating" and that he could fail Kyle. Kyle responded by going through the school's Academic Integrity Policy, and not finding anything that he violated. When the professor did not agree with Kyle's response (to put it mildly), Kyle contacted the CS department head and explained his position. The department head researched the situation and finally agreed with Kyle that there was no violation of academic policy -- and, more importantly, that professors could not bar students from posting their code online or penalize students from doing so.

I have to admit that I'm rather surprised that a separate issue did not come up. That is, many schools make students sign something saying that any code they create as a student has the copyright automatically assigned to the school. This has resulted in conflicts, as students are surprised to learn that they can't do anything with the code they created as students. I don't know if SJSU does this or not, but you could see a school claiming that since it holds the copyright on such code, that it could prevent students from posting the content. Luckily, that does not appear to be the case in this situation.

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Judges Divided On Right Of Schools To Punish Students For Mocking Principals Online

from the free-speech-or-reasonable-discipline dept

We've had a number of different stories over the years about students making use of social networks to make fun of or taunt teachers, principals and administrators -- which often ended with schools disciplining those students. However, for years, courts have held that schools have no right to discipline students for speech that occurs off-campus. The Supreme Court muddied the waters on this issue recently in its decision on the "Morse case," better known as the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case, where a student was disciplined for unfurling a banner with that phrase on it at a school-sponsored Olympic torch rally. The Supreme Court indicated that the fact that the event was school-sponsored gave the school the right to discipline the students -- but that's opening up plenty of questions in two separate cases in the same circuit where it looks like judges are somewhat split on the issue (via Michael Scott). The key issue, of course, is what constitutes a school-related event. If students are passing out the info on such fake social networking websites to classmates, is it school sponsored? That seems to be the claim some administrators are making, saying that if it influences activities at the school, then the school can discipline the students. With so many different opinions, it seems almost certain that this issue is going to show up a lot more before the courts finally settle the matter.

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Is It A Good Thing That Computer Science Is 'Cool Again'?

from the maybe-not dept

Computer science is cool again. At least, that's what the headline at Network World says. Apparently, CS enrollments are up for the first time in six years, driven by "teens' excitement about social media and mobile technologies." I'm a CS grad student, so you might expect me to be excited about this development, but I'm not actually sure it's such a good sign. It's great that there are more people considering careers in the IT industry, but I worry about people going into computer science for the wrong reasons. In my experience, if your brain works a certain way, you'll love programming and will have a successful career in the software industry. If it doesn't, there probably isn't much you can do to change that. So I'd love to see more kids explore CS, but if, after taking a couple of classes, they're not sure if CS is the right major for them, then frankly it probably isn't. If you don't enjoy programming, you're almost certainly not going to be a good programmer, and you're not going to be either successful or happy in that career. The fact that you like Facebook or your iPhone definitely isn't enough reason to be a CS major.

I think it would be better if colleges focused on expanding the computer training that non-CS majors receive. Almost every technical field involves manipulating large datasets, and so the ability to write basic computer programs will be a big productivity boost in a wide variety of fields, from economics to biology. Most people aren't cut out to be full-time programmers, but lots of people could benefit from a 1-semester course that focuses on practical data manipulation skills with a high-level scripting language like Perl or Python.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Politician Recognizes That Students Deserve Free Speech Rights Too

from the free-speech-is-good dept

There have been a number of cases recently concerning students getting punished for writing mean things about teachers or school administrators on social networking sites or blogs. In the past, there was a pretty clear legal line in terms of what was and what was not allowed: if the speech took place on campus, the school had the right to do something about it. If it took place off campus, it was the student's free speech rights. However, some courts have begun to change that bright line, by saying that since internet sites can be reached from the school, schools now have the right to punish students for things they say online. This has numerous troubling implications when it comes to basic free speech.

Amazingly, there appear to be some politicians who actually recognize this. Up in Connecticut, where a 16-year-old girl was disciplined for calling school administrators "douche bags" on her blog, state Senator Gary LeBeau is actually proposing a law that would protect student free speech in such cases. Even more impressive, LeBeau was a teacher for 35-years, so he certainly understands where teachers and administrators are coming from -- but he says that the free speech issue is more important. He says that it's not right that a school should be able to interfere with a student's conversations. Not surprisingly, the National School Boards Association is fighting against the bill, and it would be surprising if it got enough support to pass -- but it's nice to know at least one politician out there recognizes a student's right to speak their mind from home.

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More And More Students Choosing Journalism As A Major, Even As Newspapers Face Troubles

from the journalism-ain't-dying dept

Thanks to all the fretting and worrying about the financial trouble and potential demise of many mainstream newspapers, it's become something of a curiosity that more students than ever seem to be going into college journalism programs (found via Romenesko). However, as the article details, it all makes sense once you realize the simple fact: while newspapers may be in trouble, journalism is actually doing quite well.

Just as many people mistakenly believe that the recording industry represents the music industry, the newspaper industry is hardly a proxy for journalism. Journalism, these days, has expanded well beyond newspapers, and a big part of the problem is that newspapers just aren't as good a medium for news as various other platforms. The second important point that the article above makes clear: journalism, by itself, isn't necessarily a profession. For many students, they see journalism as important training for other professions -- such as law, PR, consulting or management. That's a point that's often ignored these days. The ability to clearly explain what's happening, gathering facts, understanding various viewpoints, and coherently summarizing all the points of view is actually a really valuable skill beyond just journalism. So, don't fear for "journalism." It's going strong. The problem is newspapers who haven't been able to shift course in the midst of a rapidly changing market.

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RIAA Just Keeps On Suing Students: Conversation At The End Of A Gun Barrel

from the some-conversation dept

The folks at Warner Music Group insist that their efforts to convince universities to enforce a not-so-voluntary "usage fee" on all students is part of an attempt to start a conversation on new business models. However, they conveniently leave important stakeholders (those who would be forced to shoulder the bill) out of such a conversation, and have still refused to actually participate here in the conversation. So far, their only "participation" was having a PR person send a statement scolding me for daring to raise questions about such a plan. Apparently, the sort of conversation Warner Music wants is one where everyone lines up and agrees with Warner Music.

And, of course, it should surprise no one that the RIAA, where Warner Music has plenty of influence, is still out there filing more lawsuits, even as Warner insists it's turned over a new leaf and is looking for a more reasonable solution. In other words, this isn't a "conversation" at all. It's a protection racket. Warner Music and the other major record labels are just going to keep suing until people agree to hand them a big chunk of money, apparently.

So, Warner Music, if you really want people to believe that you've turned over a new leaf, and that you're interested in a real conversation about new music industry business models, how about you call off the legal dogs and stop filing lawsuits against both individuals and companies and actually participate in a conversation? We're still more than willing to help facilitate such a conversation.

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Student Sues School For Suspending Her Over Facebook Group

from the free-speech-or-cyberbullying dept

Last year, we pointed out that teachers are increasingly complaining that students are cyberbullying not each other... but the teachers themselves. Of course, in a lot of cases these seem overblown. Yet, that hasn't stopped some teachers from arguing that cyberbullying should be a criminal offense. Yet, when teachers overreact and consider just about any criticism "cyberbullying" you're going to run into problems. Take, for example, the case of Katherine Evans. As a high school student who didn't much like her English teacher, she created a Facebook group called "Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I've ever met!" That doesn't seem like cyberbullying. That seems like garden variety student-bitching-about-teacher. Even worse, Evans' fellow students told her it was a stupid group, and expressed support for the teacher, such that Evans decided to take down the group herself

But, the school apparently felt this was a big problem, claiming that this was cyberbullying harassment and "disruptive behavior." It suspended Evans for three days and pulled her out of various advanced placement classes. Now, Evans is suing the school for violating her free speech rights. As the Wired article notes, there have been lawsuits about free speech in school in the past, but the internet makes the issues a bit different here. Either way, it's quite difficult to see how the school can claim that such a group is actually cyberbullying, and punishing the girl for venting hardly seems like a reasonable response (especially for an issue that was dealt with by other students in a reasonable manner). What is this world coming to when people can't take the slightest criticism and insist that it's somehow "cyberbullying" that requires punishment or discipline?

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Is Emailing Professors About School Schedule Changes Spam?

from the whatever-you-don't-like-is-spam dept

One of the biggest problems with any kind of regulations concerning "spam" is that people define it very differently -- with the core definition tending to be "anything I don't like" which is rather difficult to reduce into written regulation. That problem seems to be cropping up at Michigan State, where a student is being disciplined for spamming the faculty. The student was upset about a plan to shorten the 2009 fall semester, and sent emails to 391 faculty members, alerting them to the planned change, and pointing out how it could impact their syllabi and schedules. Apparently one out of the 391 professors complained about this as spam, and the school notes that its rules say email to more than 30 people is considered spam (the actual policy seems to leave some wiggle room, but not much).

While you could see how professors would get annoyed if they were constantly bombarded by students supporting different causes asking for help, it's still difficult to see how this particular use of the email system really counts as spam. Some are pointing out that, since Michigan State is a public university, it needs to protect students' free speech rights -- and disciplining this student goes against those rights. Overall, the fear should be that this sort of disciplinary process acts as a hindrance to public participation among students. If actually trying to get out the word on an issue, by sending emails to the folks who are impacted, is likely to get them disciplined, then won't people start to think twice before even bothering? Is that the message Michigan State is trying to send to its students?

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Students Dropping Out Of School To Pay RIAA Settlement Fees?

from the educational-campaign,-huh? dept

You may recall a couple years ago that an RIAA representative suggested that an MIT student should drop out of school and get a job in order to pay the fine it was demanding she pay for sharing some music. Now, according to the associate dean of student development at the University of Wisconsin, some students are doing exactly that: "Some students have had to drop out of school in order to pay for their legal fees." No examples or proof is given, so I'm wondering if this is just a throw-away line.

However, if it is true, it would be interesting to hear from some of those students, and to see how the RIAA responds to the situation. No matter how much you might think the RIAA is right to enforce copyright law against students, I'm curious to see if anyone can reasonably defend encouraging a student to drop out of college just to pay off such a fine. The punishment seems way out of line with the "crime."

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Will Financial Crisis Drive Students Back To CS?

from the but-does-CS-want-them? dept

There's some talk these days about how the financial crisis on Wall Street may be driving some students back to computer science. You may recall that during the dot com boom, enrollment in CS programs boomed, as it suddenly became a fast track to getting rich (or so some folks thought.) But, of course, the end result was that a lot of folks in CS weren't really that into actual computer science, but were just looking for the fastest ticket to getting rich. After the dot com bubble burst, many shifted their attention back to Wall Street, which had been the get rich quick path prior to the dot com boom. So, now that Wall Street seems to be imploding, there's talk again about students coming back to CS. While some see this as a good thing, you're again left with the same question: are these the types of folks who we really want in CS programs? If their sole determinant for area of study is what's likely to make them richest as fast as possible, they're not necessarily the folks who are really going to contribute very much to the space. There's nothing wrong with making labor decisions based on how much it may pay, but folks who focus on getting rich as fast as possible have a habit of screwing things up for everyone else pretty badly at times.

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Judge Says School Can Suspend Student For Fake MySpace Page Of Principal

from the questionable-reading-of-the-legal-tea-leaves dept

Just about a month ago we wrote about a principal losing a lawsuit against some students for posting a fake MySpace page pretending to be the principal. However, in a different case, a court has ruled that a school has every right to suspend students for creating a fake MySpace page of a principal. The two cases are different in a few ways, as the first one involved the principal suing the student, rather than just suspending the student. That said, the ruling by the court in this case seems problematic, and I'd be surprised if it was upheld on appeal (assuming the student appeals). The Supreme Court's famous Tinker v. Des Moines case established the precedent that schools can't punish students for protected free speech -- especially if that speech takes place off of the school campus. The court said that other Supreme Court rulings applied over Tinker, but both of the cases it cites in support involve disruptive actions at school events. A MySpace page created at home doesn't seem to qualify. Either way, if the principal's intent was to get the pages hidden so people didn't talk about them, this resulting lawsuit seems to have created the opposite situation.

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Principal Loses Lawsuit Against Students Over Fake MySpace Profile

from the taking-the-pal-out-of-principal dept

You may remember a story we had last year about a principal at a school so overreacting to some students creating a fake MySpace profile for him that he took them to court. It's one thing to ask MySpace to take down such a profile or to discipline the students in school (both of which would likely backfire as well), but to take them to court seems extreme. And, apparently, the courts think so too. An appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that there was no defamation or intentional infliction of emotional distress in the case. Of course, the judge does also scold the kids for their "unacceptable" conduct. Luckily for the kids, "unacceptable" wasn't against the law in this case.

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Is It Really So Bad If A Student Plagiarizes A Speech?

from the get-over-it dept

We've discussed how silly the concept of "plagiarism" is in many contexts once you look at the details. It's a concept that needs to be rethought -- as it often really represents someone reimagining a work in a different, and potentially valuable context. In fact, we've seen a few plagiarized defenses of plagiarism that are pieces of art by themselves.

It can be especially silly in school, where what some people consider plagiarism is really no different than collaboration. And, in fact, what people complain is "plagiarism" in schools is the sort of thing that can often be considered perfectly reasonable as an adult. When a newscaster reads someone else's script, is that plagiarism? What about when a politician reads a speech by a speechwriter? In both cases they're "passing off" someone else's work as their own. And, of course, in the stand-up comedy world, "joke stealing" is considered a part of the business (the same is true in casual joke telling) -- and that's fine. Because the words themselves aren't always what's important. It's the delivery. Or the message. Or the actions to back up the words.

That's why it seems rather overblown to read about a local controversy in Palo Alto, California, as some graduation speeches apparently borrowed heavily from others. In the details provided, it sounds like the "plagiarism" mostly consisted of jokes. Again, repeating and sharing jokes is a crucial part of culture. Pretending that only one person can ever say a joke seems ridiculous -- especially on something where the delivery and presentation are so important. So, rather than condemning these kids for seeing some funny stories and incorporating them into their talks, can we start recognizing that maybe, just maybe, "plagiarism" isn't really as bad as some make it out to be.

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