Hoopy
Geeks of a certain age will fondly remember time spent in front monochrome monitors playing text-based adventure games from Infocom. Zork was king, but the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy game was up there as well. Andy Baio over at waxy.org got his hands on an old Infocom hard drive and published what he describes as “the best parts.”
The Milliways post is great (Nerd alert!), but the 300+ comments are even better. A debate rages between the fan letters, over what it means to be a journalist, unnamed sources and questionably obtained material, and the ethics of publishing something without at least asking the author to provide context (private emails in this case).
The MSM is already wrestling with this stuff: can we quote a mySpace page in an article? At the Daily News we’ve used mySpace pictures to illustrate a couple of crime stories (the Talkeetna Halloween bandits most recently — after that lead up, no pictures).
The AP Stylebook won’t end this discussion.