Robin Hamman addresses one key media issue that is arising out of the Virginia Tech massacre tragedy: when is a victim’s social media material public and fair game for journalists — and when is it private?

Reuters Global community editor Mark Jones rounds up some of the ethical quandries the Virginia Tech shootings have raised for journalists using material from social media sites.

Michael Agger: "As the shooting at Virginia Tech unfolded yesterday, the media and the curious descended on MySpace and LiveJournal. The reporters were looking for scoops, the rest of us were rubbernecking."

Adam Tinworth on the journalists contacting Virginia Tech students via Livejournal: "Barging into that community and asking for comment feels not unlike barging into a pub and asking somebody for comments."

"In the absence of any official information from police on the identity of the Virginia Tech killer, internet sleuths claiming to be in-the-know have been calling attention — on message boards and online aggregators like Digg — to the LiveJournal blog o

"He is Asian, he lived in the dorm where the first shooting occurred and he recently broke up with his girlfriend — he also happens to have a web blog packed with pictures in which he poses with firearms. On the Internet, [he] is as good as convicted."

Robin Hamman passed a student’s Livejournal post, "which includes several pieces of potentially verifiable information", on to colleagues at BBC News Online …