Parents have a hard enough time these days making sure their kids avoid the seamier side of the Web. They certainly don’t need the Globe contributing to the problem.
But contribute the Globe did in a recent Arts & Entertainment section cover story. The piece – a well-crafted look at the burgeoning production of homemade compact discs – included a Web address that, it turned out, had more to do with pornography than music.
Readers who went to the referenced site found a banner advertisement featuring a bare-breasted and supine young woman. Those who accepted the ad’s invitation to ”click here for exclusive live videos” quickly found themselves viewing hardcore images that, to put it mildly, would offend the sensibilities of the vast majority of Globe readers.
Even those single-minded viewers who skipped the ad’s invitation and went right to the CD cover search engine could not proceed without being assaulted by images of young women in compromising positions. (Indeed, those images were far more accessible than CD covers, which consistently resisted my download attempts.)
”My concern,” reader Michael Cudahy of Marion wrote, ”is when my 13-year-old son, or someone else’s, goes to the site to get a CD cover.” The images they will find there, he said, ”are not healthy … and are just scary.”
Cudahy says he suspects the writer ”failed in [an] elementary rule of journalism in the electronic age” – always check a Web address before you publish it.
He’s 100 percent right about the rule, and half right about what happened.
The writer of the story, Steve Morse, said he did make a quick check of the Web site to make sure it dealt with CD covers, as he had been told. He says that while he does not remember seeing the ”racy” ad across the top he sensed something about the site ”seemed a bit shady.” But, he figured, that was true with many of the underground sites so common in the music industry, which he covers.
”I had no idea who was sponsoring it, and I’m sorry,” says Morse. ”I should have paid more attention to checking it out.”
In fairness, it should be noted that it is at least possible that Morse did not notice the racy ad because it was not displayed the day he checked the site – although it certainly was there a few days later when the story was published. In an attempt to get clarity on this possibility, I tracked down the site’s manager via e-mail at an unknown location in Europe. He was not forthcoming.
Either way, the effect on Globe readers who checked the site was the same. The paper betrayed an implicit trust.
The issue here is not the vigilance of one reporter – Morse is known to be conscientious and hardworking – but the need for newsroom procedures to keep pace with the online revolution. The explosion of the Web and its increasing role in daily life make adaptation essential.
Although the Globe’s official policy has been to check out a Web site before publishing the address, it’s no secret that those checks are not always done, or are cursory. And this case underscores the need to check sites right before publication, given the fluidity of Web content.
Asked last week for a response to the lapse, Globe editors quickly published (on Page 2) an ”Editor’s Note” to readers acknowledging what happened and reaffirming that ”all Web sites must be checked for content before the addresses are published in the paper.”
Inside the paper, Mark Morrow, supervising editor for the Living and Arts sections (which includes Arts & Entertainment), sent out a similar reminder to his department.
Extending that reminder to the full staff would help prevent a replay. So would asking copy editors to backstop by checking Web references as close to publication as possible.
Such extra precautions may feel unwieldy, especially on deadline. But readers who invite the Globe into their homes each morning have every right to expect the paper to behave as a proper guest.
Putting the Globe’s name behind material likely to deeply offend most readers, even if its done by accident and through indirect online reference, mocks the invitation. Especially in areas where young sensibilities and online options meet, the paper must, to echo a reader’s plea, ”be more careful.”
Postscript: Please note that the Web address in question appears nowhere in this column; it has already received way too much free promotion from the Globe.
The ombudsman represents the readers. Her opinions and conclusions are her own. Phone 617-929-3020 or, to leave a message, 929-3022. E-mail: ombud@globe.com.
