While I was reading the case of Megan Meier, a 13 years old girl who committed suicide at 2006, after being bullied for one “boy” through messages on her MySpace profile, I thought wow, What would I do if I were Pokin, or a Post’s journalism. I probably would choose the Pokin option. Tell the story maintaining the neighbor’s names away. But it’s also truth that If I did that I were lying, or at least omitting important information, but lets try to justified both scenarios.
I think that Pokin did the right thing. Steve Pokin, was a writer for the Suburban Journals of St. Charles County, that learn about the case of the suicide of Megan Meier, and their neighbors whose sent mean messages to her. But after know that the police, prosecutors and the FBI said they could find no law had been broken, he did not know if put the names of the neighbors in the story or not.
Taking the Bok’s ethical decision-making model, he probably consult his own conscience about the “rightness” of the action of put their names or not, then He talked with his editor, Dave Bundy, and their lawyer, Marvin Lindmark, about the story, and they decided not to name the neighbors whose were involve, and probably contributed to the Megan’s death. In other words, he consulted expert seeking for advice for alternatives to the act creating the ethical problem. We never know if them did the third step proposed in the Bok’s Model, but they probably conduct an hypothetically conversation with the Megan’s parents, their neighbors and authorities. Their final conclusion was that there were not arrest or charges, no civil suit and any law was broken, would be wrong to put the names of “innocent persons” to the public scorn.
In other hand, after one week, another newspaper, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, told the history but they mentioned the neighbor’s names. They were accurate and follow all the ethical truth and news values. Also we could think about this ethical dilemma, reading the utilitarianism from Mill, that is ethical if one person or a small group of people (neighbors) could be harm, for the benefit of the larger group. After the story of Megan, authorities, journalists, and social media companies are taking more actions to prevent more cases of cyber bulling. Perhaps is not enough what they can do, considering the rights of privacy of the public, but it’s a start indeed.
Both actions were difficult to make, but perhaps Pokin was the first to exposed that case in the media, he and the rest of the newspaper team had to make a decision before any controversy, and in the end, even if some persons critiqued their action, I think that was justified. You just can review some messages from the readers of Pokin, asking for the names of the neighbors, wanted them beaten or killed. It’s really difficult to expose people who probably never thought that something like the suicide of Megan could happen. More if you considered that even the authorities did not found any cause to open a case against them.
In contrast, I think that social networks, such as MySpace, Facebook, and now Google + should have to do more to fight against cyber bullying. They have to find a way to prevent so many cases. Maybe not all them find a terrible end like the case of Megan, but thousands of kids suffer this new kind of bulling. Now it is not just at the school, like Internet the potential threat is everywhere. Some can argues about the right of privacy, but like any other right, you have to use in the proper way, like Grcic ( 1986 ) asserts, sometimes privacy can be negated by more compelling right. What about the right to be treated with respect, consideration, the right to be whatever you want to be, the right to life. I know that it is a tricky situation, but somehow, government , social networks, teachers and parents have to do more about cyber bullying.
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