The Norwich Bulletin has another masterpiece editorial on Julie Amero’s case. I was about to delve into an analysis of it, when I saw that Andrew Kantor (of USA Today) has already done that. Here are some highlights:

But what’s disturbing is that the Bulletin seems to be playing fast and loose with the facts in the case, as well as with its own history of it. 

It wrote on Sunday

Whether Amero was purposefully exploring pornographic Web sites, or was the victim of a technological assault, is irrelevant.

Oddly, though, that wasn’t irrelevant when the Bulletin expressed its opinion in its editorial of January 11, when it wrote

Norwich substitute teacher Julie Amero clearly was wrong to access several pornographic Web sites on her computer at Kelly Middle School

and

“Still, she was accused and convicted of intentionally accessing several pornographic sites — not pop-up ads or windows, as she suggested.”

Almost as an afterthought the paper added then, “And she did not turn off the computer when the students saw the images.” 

Now, suddenly, the case is not about whether she deliberately accessed the porn, but about whether she did enough to “protect” the kids who were trying to see the images.

There’s more good stuff. To its credit, the NB does say that the just sentence in this case should be probation with no jail time. However, the paper expresses some happiness about the fact that Amero will never teach again.

I do not recall the last time a newspaper was so involved in a local criminal prosecution. Maybe that’s a good thing.

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