Over at Minding the Campus.

In particular, I think she has a point here:

What all of this makes clear – and it’s what I wrote for Minding the Campus back when the subpoena was still fresh in 2009 — is that university journalism programs have no business operating “innocence projects.” . . . Securing the freeing of prisoners is essentially legal advocacy, not journalism, which is why nearly all innocence projects in other states are affiliated with law schools, state bar organizations, or public defender services. Not surprisingly, inexperienced undergraduate journalism students who enroll in classes affiliated with innocence projects can get confused about where their roles as budding investigative reporters begin and end. If the state’s attorney’s office is correct in the McKinney case, Protess’s students engaged in such borderline conduct as paying sources (including $40 for crack cocaine for a witness who confessed to McKinney’s crime), flirting with sources by female students, and being coached by a private detective who was also on the Medill payroll part time.

I made a similar point about the difference between journalism and legal advocacy, focusing on the question of whether participants in the Medill Innocence Project were protected under the Illinois shield law.