Here's a new take on publishing

If any of you are in New Zealand you will no doubt be aware of the tragic death of two teenagers at a party last week. For those of you overseas the girls were run down in the street, along with several others who are still in hospital.

The reason I was prompted to write was when I opened the paper today there was a half page article of messages taken straight from the Bebo website someone set up in remembrance of the girls. This says something about the way news gathering has changed. What I did wonder was whether there were ethical issues involved here. Did the paper ask permission from the people who posted messages on the Bebo site? The other issue is that usually newspapers won't print letters from anonymous sources but in this case the postings to Bebo could have come from anywhere. I think there are issues here that need addressing.