Where was the media on Missouri Facebook Law?

The Missouri Facebook Law, scheduled to go into effect August 28, has created quite a storm among educators, something that could have been prevented if even one media outlet had actually covered the story before the law was passed.

As far as I can tell, only two media sources even mentioned the Facebook portion of the Amy Hestir Student Protection Act before it was passed by both Houses.

The Turner Report has written about this bill each of the five years Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, has proposed it, including three years when she was in the House of Representatives.I wrote about it again this year.

The only other report I have been able to locate also came from Joplin, courtesy of KODE reporter Gretchen Bolander, who interviewed me about the bill.

I was also interviewed by an Associated Press reporter, who, for some reason, never published the story. Whether that was his decision or one made by his editors, I have no idea.

Had the Facebook portion of the bill been mentioned earlier, it would have received the same reaction it is receiving now. The questions about this poorly-written law would have already been addressed and most likely, that part of the bill would have been removed long before it was passed in both chambers and signed by the governor.

One thing that has not been mentioned is that this bill did not go through the Senate Education Committee. Instead, Sen. Cunningham kept it in the General Laws Committee. The chairman of that committee, not surprisingly, is Sen. Cunningham. The hearing for the bill included testimony from Amy Hestir about horrific crimes committed against her by a teacher long before social networking became a part of our everyday life.

It appears the only other testimony was provided by a police officer who worked with schools and talked about "passing the trash," the practice of allowing teachers charged with sexual infractions with students to quietly resign and then sign on with another school.

The Facebook provision was not addressed and continued to be left out of any discussion of the Amy Hestir Student Proection Act.

It might never have been brought up by the media until August 28 had it not been for the May 22 Joplin tornado. Social networking, primarily Facebook, played a key role in Joplin educators' ability to locate students and make sure they were all right. This process could have taken weeks had it not been for social networking.

At that point, the media jumped on the story for a brief time, and then quickly let it drop.

What finally made everyone sit up and take notice I have no idea, but the insidious wording of the bill and its vagueness appear to be having exactly the effect Sen. Cunningham was hoping for.

Not only are school districts starting to construct policies limiting Facebook "friending," but because the law is so vague, some are thinking of taking the law much further:

And out of the Kansas City area, there have been reports of a district requiring teachers with Twitter and Facebook accounts to give school officials access to those accounts.

All of this is being done while the media continues to give a free pass to Sen. Cunningham's selective use of statistics and facts.

The challenges to the law are already beginning, according to an article in today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch. If the media had done its job in the first place, those challenges would not be necessary.