My roommate and I were having a discussion about responsibility in the media and with individual bloggers. Is it wrong for someone to leak sensitive information that could cause harm in the name of getting the scoop? Tangential to that conversation is the question of good taste, and my local paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has shown that they have little of that.

Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, and one of Atlanta's patron saints, donated half a billion dollars to build an aquarium in downtown Atlanta. The city is hoping that the aquarium combined with current attractions like the World of Coke, Underground Atlanta, and Centennial Olympic Park, will finally create a critical mass of downtown attractions, enough to keep the tourists coming, and, with luck, even get people to start living downtown. All Bernie wanted was that the plans for the aquarium be kept secret so that it would fresh, exciting, and a complete surprise to visitors when it opens. The AJC decided to flip Bernie the bird, and they used the open records law to get the plans and plaster every detail all over the front page of the paper. If there was a decent alternative to the AJC for local news, this would be the last straw. If there was any real competition, the AJC would be bankrupt. I don't know a single person who considers the AJC a decent paper, and that's pretty sad. If the city really wants people to want to live in Atlanta, they should see about attracting some competition in the print news arena.