NC newspaper mines family blogs for murder story info.

One of the snide, elitist raps against blogs is that they couldn't exist without the mainstream media to mine for information.

This is a case of a mainstream news outlet mining blogs for information.

Via Romenesko, the Raleigh News & Observer used a family's blogs to beef up its reporting on a murder story.

Sixteen year old Becky Berkley's stepmother and former boyfriend were charged with killing Becky's father, Paul.

The News & Observer writes that several members of the Berkley family, including Becky, maintained personal blogs.

The blog, where she writes under the screen name MistressBecky, includes photos of her and friends, a poster for the movie "Rent" and a list of interests: music, theater, plastic surgery, the Holocaust, and her former boyfriend, Latwon Johnson. Police charged Johnson, 18, another friend, Andrew Canty, and Monique Berkley in the death of Paul Berkley in a North Raleigh park early Sunday morning.

Becky Berkley writes about high school classes and her father's deployment to the Middle East. When Becky was grounded last spring and not allowed to blog, a friend posted a message announcing that Becky had had her first French kiss.

During the summer, Becky mentioned a trip to Florida where she visited her stepmother's parents and Busch Gardens.

"It'll be nice to see my grandparents again," she wrote. "I still haven't even met some of my uncles, aunts and cousins yet (they only became my relatives about 5 years ago when Monique and dad got married, so it's not that weird.)"

In the blog, Becky makes no mention of Canty, her high school classmate, moving into their home after her father deployed to the Middle East. In her most recent post, she explains to readers how her father's death was so unexpected.

This might seem, at first glance, like a lazy way for a paper to enhance its reporting of a story, but I'm not so sure.

One of the things I hated the most about being a commercial TV news reporter was covering murder stories. Newscast producers always wanted soundbites from the family, as if you couldn't guess how they were feeling. If I could have beefed up a murder story with a few screen captures and some text for the quotes, it would have been much better than knocking on the front door with a mic in my hand and a videographer standing behind me.

Some might argue that mining a personal blog for information is a violation of privacy. Again, I disagree. Nobody who places personal information on the Internet can claim credibly an expectation of privacy.