Via Romenesko, I find this story in the Raleigh News & Observer (in North Carolina), explaining how reporters covering the murder of a returning soldier (allegedly by the teenaged boyfriend of the man's wife) used the family's blogs to gather more details about the family, especially those of the teenage daughter who knew the alleged murderers. The story says of her:

It's not clear who Becky intends to read her blog. Most of the time she seems to address her words to friends and others who know her.

Can you imagine a newspaper printing, "It's not clear who the reporter intends to read his story. Most of the time, he seems to address his words to a general audience," or other such nonsense? Yeesh.

Readers complained to the News & Observer's ombudsman that printing this kind of information about the family was, as the story said, "almost voyeuristic," and unnecessary in the story. The ombudsman's reply quotes a journalism professor saying it's perfectly appropriate to use publicly-available online information in a story. In other words, because it's available for all to see, it's fair to use it.

So how did the online version of the story about the blog entries end?

All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be published, broadcast or redistributed in any manner.

Does anyone think the newspaper would have honored such a request had one been posted at the bottom of the blogs in question?