Yeah, we'll go over the syllabus and do all that good stuff we have to do on the first day of class. Call roll, too. If you've taken out student loans, the federal government is very interested in your whereabouts. But there's something in the news now, and we'll take it up in class since it fits what we'll be studying ... how well it fits is something we'll decide .
Here's the story: Late last week, a trial court judge in New York City ruled fashion model Liskula Cohen can sue an pseudononymous blogger who called her a skank, among other unkind names, for defamation of character. Now the blogger, a fashion design student named Rosemary Port, is suing Google for defamation because it released her name under court order. I'm not sure either one of them is guilty of anything I'd recognize as defamation, but if we have time after going over the syllabus Monday, we'll look around the Google news directory and see what we can find out ... .
(That's why I like teaching journalism: The world just refuses to chop itself up into neat little 50-minute segments for my convenience.)
In the meantime, here are two things I want you to know about Web blogs:
- When you post anything to a blog, or anywhere else on the Internet, you are publishing it.
- I am being very, very polite in my references to Ms. Cohen and Ms. Port on this blog.
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