Linking Laws

We are now entering the world of media law... I will probably have to hire a lawyer at some point to really know what I'm talking about, but I was given this prompt to think about the legal and ethical boundaries of linking online. 

"You're a reporter working for the Boulder Daily Camera. You've been assigned a story about a CU English professor who was dismissed because his name was listed on a child pornography Web site as a frequent client. The professor denies that his name is listed on the site.

It is the normal operational procedure to list all relevant external links. Based upon your readings and understanding of communication law, would you post the link to the child pornography site? Why or why not? What principles do you use in your decision? What trade-offs are present in the rationale behind your decision?"

While I believe there should be transparency and as much information as possible should be given to the readers/users of the journalistic website, linking to a child pornography site would definitely not be ethical or legal. 

First is the issue of obscenity. Like with all media, obscenity is prohibited on the internet (Foust 221). Child pornography would absolutely constitute obscene material, and linking to this material, while not directly on your own site, could create more traffic to the obscene site and ultimately perpetuate this illegal activity. 

In a similar way, United States courts have seen cases dealing with linking to illegal activity, such as in the cases of Universal City Studios v. Reimerdes with links to illegal software and a case where a couple was criticizing the Latter-Day Saints church on their website and linking to the copyrighted LDS material. In both cases the links were removed, so in this case I would also suspect that a link would not be tolerated.

Also with linking laws, there could be some question as to the "relationship between the linker and linkee" (Foust, 226). There should be no question that your site and this illegal site have no relations with one another. 

Perhaps a way to get around this would be to take a screen shot of the evidence (if there is such evidence) and post a link to the image and blur out anything that would be obscene to give as much information as possible (or inline linking, as Foust coins on page 228). While you generally cannot inline link without getting express permission, this may be a legitimate "fair use" case where the journalist is gathering evidence for a specific purpose and Another way would be to describe or link to police reports that would, in theory, describe the evidence that his name was indeed listed on the website as a client. 

Project 4-20

... 4-20, the day of major marijuana madness, is the topic for our class-wide project. Special thanks to Prof. Rick Stevens for suggesting the subject. I think it will be important and informative to do an in-depth journalistic examination and bring together many elements into one high-quality package.

Potential topics:

1. Video interview, or day-in-the-life, of someone who works at or owns a MMJ dispensary. I think many people who do not have their medical marijuana cards or who have never been inside of a dispensary (like myself) would not know what it's like to work in or be in one of those facilities. I'm not sure how friendly they will be to having a student journalist with a camera in their dispensary, but if so, I think it's a great opportunity. 

2. Juxtapose two different types of people who take part in the 4-20 "celebration." One will be a regular marijuana smoker, one will be a first-timer or someone who does it only occasionally. See what their lives are like, what they do for the day, how they are different ... Also maybe try to find statistics or do some sort of investigation into how many people are just recreational/occasional users versus regular users.

3. Do an interview with Boulder Police and ask them about what type of impact 4-20 has on the community, if there is more violence or more crime in general, and how have the MMJ dispensaries impacted Boulder more broadly other than just for 4-20. 

4. Go to the psychological/substance abuse services on campus or in the community and try to do an investigative piece on the real affect of marijuana on individuals. Is it really a "gateway" drug? Maybe we could do some sort of animation or interactive diagram of what weed does to the brain. 

And an extra for good luck: 

5. A historical look at the prohibition of marijuana in the United States. What were the reasons why marijuana became such a taboo, as opposed to cigarettes and alcohol? 

133 comments?

Yes, 133 comments; shared 74 times on Facebook; Tweeted 35 times....last I checked.

On a blog post.

On what topic, you ask? It must be something monumental, something exciting, something worth discussing!

The State of the Union Address? The 2012 apocalypse? Super Bowl XLV? The next trip to the moon?

No no, not that. Not any of those. It's about cats. Specifically: "lolcats."

All comments are in "lolspeak"...

What is this "lolspeak," you ask? If you're not in-the-know (i.e., you've been surfing the web under a rock like I have, apparently), here is a little tidbit from 3 of the over 130 comments on "To avoid fading colours" post on Jan. 24, 2011:

theinvaderkitty: oh noes!!1 Ai no longah has a colah!
Kestrelle: Congaratz awn teh so-low nawt sekkund, TIK! Extends floofy…..errr….spikey talons inna fren-sheep.
noodle: ai best offar mai floofi paw 2 boff ob use. pleezed 2 meetz u theinvaderkitty an kestrelle.

I really don't know how to respond to this. But I will try. Apparently the blog that contains this "content," http://icanhascheezburger.com/, is quite the rage. Lolcats is lolpopular so I will lolsuckitup and lolrespond. I don't think that's lolspeak...and I don't care.


How did this get so "paw"pular? As an expert student with almost 7 years of post-secondary experience, I decided to do a little bit of investigating using my favorite resource: Wikipedia. Lolcats originated in 2005. That means it's been around for over 5 years.


FIVE YEARS of Lolcats


Wow. No wonder people are so adept at this so-called lolspeak. I guess I was too concerned with my serious academic career to be aware of this resilient phenomenon. Was I missing out?


If you wisely chose to forgo clicking the link to the blog, I shall attempt to enlighten you with a brief description: It's a blog with posts, simple enough. But each post is a picture or video of a CAT. Most pictures have some sort of this lolspeak involved, and this lolspeak is attempting to "make a funny" by anthropomorphizing the animal.  And it is stupid.  Very...stupid...

Now... if I could pinpoint what audience this blog is targeting, I would guess off the top of my head: middle-aged women who want to get involved in the internet and just find this so cute and adorable ohmygooosh how could I NAAAWT get involved?

But again, looking at Wiki, I see that 4chan started this whole lolcats trend. And 4chan was started by a 15-year-old kid in his basement. This is NOT the demographic I was expecting. Who really looks at and comments on this? Any lolcats fan(s) who are reading care to reveal your demographic if you are out there and willing to out yourself?

However, surfing the web the other day I did find something pretty exciting that I had to share with a few of my friends. It's...pretty amazing... Check out this video (and please excuse the language appearing at the top of the screen...the band's name is "Holy F*ck," but I assure you there is no bad language in the video itself...if you care):

Now THIS I can be a part of!!! It's amazing! It's superb! I love it!!! Why? I have no idea. I suppose I'm one of many who gets a kick out of cute kittens and puppies doing weird things and acting like humans.

Sometimes I like to separate myself from the constant work that goes into getting *another* Master's degree (that's right, 2), this time in journalism where I have to learn about all of the things I should be skeptical of in this world. I like to watch stupid stuff to get my mind off of my seemingly impossible schedule (including watching The Bachelor...yes, I love that show, I admit it). I think most of us do this. I don't think there's any shame in that, even though I kind of made fun of you lolcats fans earlier. Here, let me embarrass myself a little bit more to make peace: I be sooo sawwy to allz thoz fanziz.

Am I right about this "kick back and watch stupid *%@^ every once in a while" idea? What embarrassing things do you do to get your mind off of your hectic life? I'd love to know I'm not the only one.

Why is today signficant?

"Do not dwell on the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment." -Buddha

This blog post is officially my first assignment for my Digital Newsroom course at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The task: to write about today's significance.

After receiving this assignment, I began to think.... today's significance as compared to what? Compared to the past? Compared to the future? Compared to all previous and potential Tuesdays? Compared to other days of the week? Is today more or less important than any other day?

One event in particular that popped into my mind is Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the United States. Major media outlets like BBC, CNN, and the Washington Post (just to name few) are reporting on this visit as front-page news, especially focusing on the strained relations between the U.S. and China, and China's potential to replace the U.S. as the major world power.

Granted this is a significant event to many people in the United States and China, and even Europe and other first-world countries... but is it significant to everyone? Looking at other news websites like Al-Jazeera, this news is buried while other issues are much more newsworthy. Do they care about if U.S.-China relations? Do they care about the yuan or President Obama refusing to meet with the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama*? (*Side note: really? The Dalai Lama? If you know anything about this man or ever seen him talk, he is a respectable, and quite charming, human being that deserves a handshake at the very least...Ah, the things our leaders do to appease our competition.)

In a word, no. Citizens in many parts of the world could probably care less that the Chinese president is visiting the U.S. Al-Jazeera, on the other hand, is primarily wrapped up with the Tunisian government...or actually...lack of Tunisian government. And again, this story is mostly buried on the front page of the Washington Post, CNN, and BBC.

So is it significant? Of course, but it depends on perspective. It depends on where you live, what you're concerned about.

So what makes today significant for me?





Today is significant because I can sit in the coffee shop and write this post.

Today is significant because I live in one of the most beautiful places on Earth and go to graduate school on one of the most breathtaking campuses.














Today is significant because I get to be here, simple as that.
















And finally, today is significant because I have the ability to finish this post in my classroom, just minutes before the deadline, with a big smile on my face.







I hope you are able to find significance in the present today.