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In the wake of CBS' questionable three-parter this week The Secret Lives of Teens on the online antics of adolescents--we commented on how Daniel Sieberg seemed to contradict himself here and here--Barbara Pinto got into the act with a yet weaker package for ABC's A Closer Look.
Pinto filed on so-called cyberbullying, using the hook of the suicide of Megan Meier, a 13-year-old girl in the suburban St Louis town of Dardenne Prairie. "Sending someone an harassing e-mail is a crime but posting that same information on a Website or blog is perfectly legal," Pinto explained, as the township passed a censorship ordinance.
Pinto's piece was thin and one-sided. Meier's parents insisted that a MySpace.com posting drove their daughter to kill herself. But its content--"I do not know if I want to be friends with you any longer because I hear you are not nice to your friends"--seems a far cry from harassment. Instead of being a new media controversy, the parents' complaint seemed to be an old-fashioned neighborhood feud when it was revealed that "Josh Evans," the poster, was the disguise used by the mother of a girlfriend of Megan's. Anyway Megan "had struggled with depression" even before the message was sent.
Furthermore, Pinto could not find a single free speech advocate to argue against the township's blatant disregard for the First Amendment.
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