St, Petersburg Times publishes front page material that would be filterd by Florida’s new law.

mdoneil writes “Florida wants library filters but provides money to schools ‘Newspapers in Education’ project that brings front page, top of the fold article about anal sex to students.
The article appeared in Monday’s newspaper. Teachers and others outraged that anal sex discussed in same edition. Letters to the editor from concerned residents and educators blast paper for poor judgement

The anal sex story would however be filterd by the legislature’s proposed filters so children would only be able to read about sodomy from their local newspaper.”

April 23, 2004 by Samantha Uncategorized 9

Eli says:

April 23, 2004 at 6:54 pm

Filtering
Since when do the members of the Press provide a yardstick for morality in society? Just because such an article appears in the press doesn’t make it right and doesn’t dictate that all conventions are overlooked. If that would be the case then society would have no boundaries and all behavior would be acceptable. Each industry and profession has its own set of ethics. I would hate to think the the media is now telling our profession what is ethical. What next? American society protects the rights of all its citizens and no one group should impact on another. Each group should evaluate implication not obediently fall to them.

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pchuck says:

April 23, 2004 at 7:11 pm

Refresh my recollection…..
Refresh my recollection and tell me why we want children reading this story? Perhaps for a book report on amateur sex therapists?

I don’t want my 9 year old reading this story.

As an aside, I’ll make a couple of comments that are really unrelated to filters in libraries. I tend to agree with the letters to the editor on this one. This is a story worthy of the front page? The news value on this one is kinda skinny and the inclusion of the sample question at the very least goes up to (if not over) the line between good taste and bad taste for a mainstream newspaper. Don’t they have editors at the St. Pete Times?

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Anonymous Patron says:

April 23, 2004 at 7:23 pm

The article in St. Petersburg Times
Was about her column, right? Not the actual text of her column? Huge difference there. Sounds like her actual column would be hugely inappropriate for a newspaper that was distributed to elementary schools. An article about the column that happens to note that she wrote about anal sex is hardly providing graphic descriptions.

I think the problem really is that it was on the front page. It’s not exactly front page news that yet another college student has a sex column in her school newspaper. If it’d been in “Arts and Living” or on a High School/College news page, I bet very few people would have complained.

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Steffers says:

April 23, 2004 at 10:16 pm

it must have been a slow news day
I agree with the above, I am not sure why this was front page news. Inhibitions aside, that sex columns appear in college newspapers is not a surprise. This young lady may be a bit bolder than most writers but it ain’t front page news. Then again, FWIW, I saw a newspaper that had an article about the questionable voting on American Idol on the front page. Editors are people too. More than likely this was a case where a very slightly scandalous article was showcased to sell papers.

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mdoneil says:

April 23, 2004 at 11:48 pm

Re:it must have been a slow news day
Actually it was not a slow news day. The Times had several articles with photographs about the killing of the Hamas leader on the inside pages of the front section.

I guess a college newspaper columnist writing about sex trumped an incident with international significance. Of course no college columnist was ever bold enough to write about sex before.

The Times has been an excellent newspaper for many years – for wrapping fish. It is a raving leftist rag.

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pchuck says:

April 23, 2004 at 11:52 pm

Re:The article in St. Petersburg Times
Not the actual text of her column?

They did include parts of her column, read the story. This is why a newspaper has an editor. The editor probably shouldn’t have spiked it but editors do make needed and necessary changes.

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Anonymous Patron says:

April 24, 2004 at 12:04 am

Re:Refresh my recollection…..
We don’t want your 9-year-old reading it, either. Actually, we don’t want YOU reading it. Exercise some personal responsibility. You’ll be glad you did.

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Anonymous Patron says:

April 24, 2004 at 12:20 am

Re:it must have been a slow news day
THEN DON’T READ IT! Is someone holding a gun to your head, forcing you to read it? Take some personal responsibility! Sheesh!

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Anonymous Patron says:

April 24, 2004 at 7:22 am

gun to the head?
No, but there may not be another major daily newspaper in that area. In most places of the US outside of NYC or LA, that is the case. Not as it used to be even 10-30 years ago.

On an aside, see how much filtering will do for the library? I mean it’s not as if the library also doesn’t stock newspapers and the like…

— Ender, Duke_of_URL

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