Internet vs media
Jan 19th, 2008 | By Silent Observer | Category: Opinion
In Canada, there’s something called the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA), which prohibits the publication of information by any means. Then if a minor is the victim of a crime, then the media can’t run around saying the minor’s name. We have something similar here in the US and until recently, it’s usually been followed by most media outlets. That is, until the Internet came around. A young girl in Toronto, named Stefanie Rengel, was brutally stabbed by two fellow teens on New Years Day for reasons that are yet unknown. In Stefanie’s case, that’s exactly what happened, as multiple “tribute” groups were created in her memory. People wanted to show their support for her and remember her life together, but what they were inadvertently doing was breaking the YCJA by “reporting” on her death. People are on the Internet more and more and we’re getting our news from it now more than ever in the past. What happens when somebody breaks a gag order by posting about something on their Facebook page? Or writing about it on their blog or away message? What I feel is that this is not the breaking of the law as I think we need to check what kind of the reporting has been done on net by the people. Since it was just a tribute to a girl and just to make the haunting issue alive in public I feel that this should not be a big problem. There was nothing written which was against her personality or which can hurt her image this should not be taken as an issue by the media rather they should support these kinds of deeds which can help to stop these kinds of episodes in future .






