New York Times, Monday November 16, 2009

While reading the New York Times today, one article that caught my attention was one in the business section called, Taking Aim At Student Muckrakers. When I first began the article the subject that these journalism students were able to investigate and report for their class intrigued me. What I felt was the most interesting about their project for class was that they were Abe to un-cover evidence on a case that happened three-decades earlier. AS I further read the article it talked about how these students may have to go to jail to protect their witnesses in the cases that they helped clear. Prosecutors want to see emails, documents and training materials used in the class. The prosecutors even said that within the students three years of work on the case they paid witnesses, flirted, and even flashed a shotgun. I thought that this was very interesting because there was no evidence supporting whether these accusations are true. If they are, then that sheds a completely different light on the situation, whether or not they did this investigative reporting the right and proper way. One the most interesting parts of the article was that the prosecutors are stating that the students are in-fact not reporters and therefore do not have the privilege of protecting their work. The fact that this article touched so close to home with me really made me think about my own work and the work that other students do. I thought the article should be read by all Journalism majors because it shows the hard work that students can do and how they will stick up for their rights and the work they did.