Slate magazine dipped its toes in the media gutter this morning when it ran a piece looking at Rudy Giuliani’s 17-year-old daughter’s Facebook profile. The limited news value of splashing a 17-year old high school student’s picture and profile across the pages of a major Web site is served, according to Slate, because Caroline’s profile said that she belonged to the Facebook group “Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack).”
The reporter says that “According to her profile, she withdrew from the Obama group at 6 a.m. Monday, after Slate sent her an inquiry about it.”
Now, there’s a certain expectation of public exposure if you post a profile to a social networking site and fail to “lock” it, meaning that you’re leaving it open for viewing to anyone who chances across it–but for Slate to run a silly little item about it, and expose a 17 year-old to public ridicule like this is more than unnecessary. Some might even call it tasteless.
Paul McLeary is a former CJR staff writer. Since 2008, he has covered the Pentagon for Foreign Policy, Defense News, Breaking Defense, and other outlets. He is currently a defense reporter for Politico.