Return to Venice High

Regular Wednesday blogger Rip Rense this week recalls his days as the student newspaper editor (and campus punching bag) of Venice High School. He opines that back in his day, the adviser of The Oarsman would have run the story about the teacher who years before had an affair and a messy breakup with an underage actor she tutored. The recent editors famously did not get to publish, as they discussed Monday in an L.A. Times op-ed piece. I doubt that the principal in Rip's day would have let the story run either -- but in any case I haven't been able to get too outraged over this. For all the high-minded claims of news value, I think the story's driver is a lower journalistic urge, scandal. The episode occured before the teacher came to Venice High, the facts were in the public record, and there apparently was no evidence that the school district didn't know of it. As news, it was old. It had legs mainly because it involved a celebrity (Edward Furlong of Terminator 2) and sex.