Mainstream media (MSM) in Australia and the UK hadn't named the man but a quick search on the internet soon showed that social media sites didn't have any qualms about doing so. I considered writing a blog post about the implications of how our media had decided not to report this fully as it seemed relevant to my earlier post about agenda setting in the media.
I knew that mainstream media organisations have codes of conduct to follow when it comes to reporting certain types of information involving celebrities and I wasn't sure if their reluctance to name him was because they were just following those. People on the internet have no such restrictions and report whatever they want. I certainly didn't think it was for the vague legal reasons cited in a few of the newspapers.
The ABC's Media Watch covered the story last night and said that the British media hadn't named the man due to rule changes in the wake of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal. Presenter Jonathan Holmes then goes on to question why Australian media haven't named the man either.
I didn't write the blog post. I didn't feel I had enough information about why MSM hadn't named the man. Was it due to a code of conduct or was it for another reason? I wondered if highlighting the story without knowing the full details would leave me feeling ethically compromised. In the end I decided that as I'm not a journalist, I still have a choice on what I write about and chose to write a different post.
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