As a senior communcations major at Virginia Tech, I am required to take Communication Law and Ethics before I graduate.  The course focuses on situations where mainly news outlets of some sort are involved in a lawsuit.

During my class last week, we discussed search and seizures in newsrooms.  We discussed a few cases in class where someone had information the police wanted such as photos or recordings so they could find out who was involved in a riot or another event that caused some damage.  In one situation, it was some sort of college media and they disposed of the evidence before police came to search their newsroom. Now JMU is having the same issue.  The student paper there had photos of the riot last weekend and police wanted them.  They showed up at the paper and threatened to take all their computers if they didn’t hand over the photos.  The paper complied because they didn’t know what else to do.

There have been other times when stuff I was learning in class has related to my internship here at WSLS.  None are coming to mind right now but I recall other times that I have thought there was a correlation.  It’s good to know that having to memorize hundreds of cases this semester may come in handy once I graduate!