Watching the Watchers

Here's a cool story for you. The local newspaper was ordered by a local judge recently to give up the name of one of their anonymous posters or at least the name of the company the plaintiff needs to go after for the information. The forums for the CNHI run newspaper are handled by a third party - Groupee's HeyMartha forums.

Personally, I think the staff at the Herald Bulletin might have access to that info? At least to the email address of the account. I've heard they've banned users and deleted posts in the past - or had the third party company (Groupee) do it.

It appears the newspaper is trying to protect the identity of the anonymous poster (who was very political.) The thing is, the anonymous poster posted libelous statements. I don't think 'protecting a source' should have played in any decision to release the information since this is the case.

It goes before a judge again tomorrow. I talked with Michael C. Casuscelli, publisher of the Herald Bulletin briefly on the phone today. He said, basically, they'd give the judge the information that's available on the website.

In any case, I went and talked to Darrell Baylor and his son Paul Baylor, who is representing him in the case.

Part 1

Part 2

A couple of interesting aspects to this case:

• That old media (who did report on it) now has an independent third party media covering the events...
• That the newspaper doesn't control (?) its own local forums...

You can see the members of AFP discuss it on this thread.

Thoughts? Hello?

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