The Miami Herald is a "family newspaper," you know. Unlike yours truly, their writers aren't even free to drop f-bombs in their copy. Apparently, though, their website is totally free to link to hardcore pornography sites without so much as a "NSFW" warning in stories displayed on their front page.
So remember how we wrote about the fact Charlie Sheen's porn star friend Capri Anderson makes her home right here in Miami? Well, The Herald decided to run with it today (no, former People magazine bureau chief Mindy Marques is not in charge until Monday, or surely her experience would have lead to her paper getting to dumb celebrity news first).
Funny thing is the article mentions Anderson's porn website ClubCapriAnderson.com with a link directly to the page. Once you click on that link you're greeted with fingers in all sorts of shaved orifices and whipped cream on nipples. Not very family friendly. Granted the context should give readers a clue, but there's no direct warning that clicking on the link will take them to such explicit imagery.
The headline and link to their story is currently featured prominently on the front page.
I'm guessing the Herald's publishing software automatically creates a link anytime a web address is directly mentioned in the copy.
It's funny though that The Herald will link to a porn site in the post and not to the source of their information. In this case, a New York Daily News story. That paper is credited but there's no linkage. We're guessing they probably first picked up on the Miami angle of the story from reading about it here on Riptide, and a courtesy link is always nice too.
That's the funny thing about some news organizations refusing to include many links in their stories. There's nothing preventing them from doing so outside of their stubbornness and misguided policies, and their publishing software apparently makes it painfully easily. So easy that sometimes they create links without even noticing it.
For the record, our blog post mentioned her website, but didn't link to it. We did however link to the stories where we got out information.
