There’s been an interesting shift in the media coverage of MySpace over the past week or so.
MySpace leapt onto the front pages of local (the Hartford Courant had two stories as part of a larger “expose” after Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal launched an investigation into complaints of sexual misconduct between adults and the children they lured into compromising positions via MySpace: A Social Life on the Cyber Edge and Risky Spaces) and national (The Nightly News with Brian Williams covered it, as did Dateline) news.
The response from the blogging world was largely that these equally clueless reporters and parents were making mountains out of molehills as, a) this has always been a problem, b) the responsibility falls to the parents to know what their kids are doing online (this was addressed by many of the newsreports), and c) Get the kids the hell off MySpace, it wasn’t created for them and it can’t do much more than it is to protect them. This little diatribe here talks about how people just need to use common sense before they put information online. There’s an interesting take on musicians and groupies and their presence on MySpace here, with a comment below calling out the media for its scare tactics and incorrect information.
Now, the shift. I’ve seen some positive articles popping up pointing to what MySpace was really about in the beginning: A way for bands and fans to find each other. Bands get their name out there without money-grubbing labels getting their meathooks all up in the band’s kitchens, and fans get access to the latest news and tunes. It’s nice to see, and will hopefully balance out all of the negative coverage before all MySpace users are denounced as pedophiles. However, would all this coverage have come about if MySpace hadn’t been bought by Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp? Something to consider.