COMM 317: Due process and ... Britney Spears? Yep

Here's an ABC News sidebar, which is not something you strap onto a motorcycle but a story that runs off to the side of a news story and explores a related angle. (What do you call the main story? The mainbar. What else? Illiterate? Well, yes, maybe so. But logical? Well, yes.) It's about Britney Spears' mental health issues. And here's an overnight story from MTV updating it.

Britney Spears aside, it raises issues of due process. Which is what I want us to focus on.

Read the story, and blog on these questions. How does the issue of legal due process become involved with the Britney Spears saga? (Hint: You did notice a second "t" in "statute," didn't you?) How are her rights protected by a 5150? How are yours and mine -- or how would they be if we were in California? Are they the same rights? How well, judging by the evidence in the news reports, would you say her rights are being safeguarded?

COMM 317 is also an ethics class, and this story has some ethical angles, too. Go to the Society of Professional Journalists' website and check out the SPJ Code of Ethics, too. Read it or review it (it never hurts to go back over the canons of ethics, right? You may want to keep a copy in the bathroom next to the "AP Stylebook," in fact). Then blog some more:

How, specifically, are the SPJ canons observed in the two linked stories? By ABC? By MTV? Is Britney Spears getting the break she deserves by the code of ethics? Is she getting the same break you and I would if we needed 5150 protection? By all means consider your own ethical standards, too, but part of what I want you to do is to think specifically about the SJP Code, the law and due process.