Sorry, you can't have an opinion about that...at least not here

By Liz Tjaden

We have talked a lot about how blogging has become a great source for information, communication and news. They can give a voice to people who normally wouldn’t be able to be heard. Opinions can be raised and disagreements can be played out. However, rarely do we hear much about students being punished or chastised for what they write. Alana Taylor never thought that would happen to her until her blog got national attention.

On Sept. 5, Taylor wrote a blog about her thoughts on a journalism class she is taking at NYU called Reporting Gen Y. It is a course about journalism and how it affects Generation Y, those born roughly between 1982 and 1994. The blog that she wrote, posted on MediaShift, was Taylor’s personal opinion about classes, professors, and fellow classmates at NYU.

Her blog covers three main points: her disappointments of NYU and their “traditional” journalistic views, the lack of bloggers around her and how important she thinks it is to get beyond print and focus on digital new media.

While she has every right to publish what she wants to, this didn’t make many people happy in the Big Apple including her classmates and professor. Taylor wrote about things her professor said in class and talked about other students and their lack of blogging.

These events have sparked a lot of controversy and questions about freedom of speech rights compared to privacy rights.

If Taylor isn’t making any libelous or untruthful statements about the actions of her class does posting it make it right?

Sure it does! College is a time for self expression. It seems like Taylor is light years beyond her fellow classmates in terms of technology and digital media and now she is being chastised for it?

It could be argued that Taylor had right to say those things about her professor and department. There are things a professor says in class that don’t need to be repeated. Especially to the whole world.

Great, it’s glad to hear that we are going to start silencing those with opinions that we don’t agree with now. Hasn’t anyone sat back and thought maybe she has a point? Obviously, she feels like there are problems within her school that are not being addressed. The question is, if her blog should be the place do that.