Columbia Journalism Review

Will I go to prison for violating the terms of service? This is the question journalists must ask themselves, now, when writing data stories based on public information collected from a website, such as Facebook or Twitter. Violating a terms of service that prohibits scraping can carry with it possible criminal liability under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). No journalists have been prosecuted under this statute, but their sources have, and some journalists have been asked to stop using specific reporting tools by Facebook.

There are few more sought-after politicians in the United States at the moment than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In June, at 28 years old, by making a play from the left, she pulled off a stunning primary victory over Joe Crowley, who had represented New York in Congress since 1999—first from the 7th district, then the 14th. Wherever she goes, Ocasio-Cortez brings a media deluge.  A couple weeks ago, feeling mobbed by reporters, she decided to make two “listening tour” stops—one in the the Bronx and another in Queens, open to the public but not to the press.

President Donald Trump's "The Art of the Deal" tells the tale of how some newspaper stories get written. When Trump Tower was under construction, Trump, according to the book, called up a gossip reporter to claim that Prince Charles and Princess Diana were about to buy an apartment in the building. Buckingham Palace, as a matter of policy, never comments for this type of story—meaning that for a certain kind of reporter keen on a certain kind of story, the tip is a tempting one even if they suspect it’s almost certainly not true.