The Michigan appeals court has overturned a Washtenaw County judge and said a young man who committed sexual misconduct at school must be on the state's sex-offender list.

Judge Darlene O'Brien said registration in the case was cruel punishment that violated the Michigan Constitution, but the appeals court disagreed.

A man identified in court papers as T.D. was 15 in 2006 when he was accused of putting a chokehold on a girl and exposing her breast while another boy tugged on her belt. T.D. was placed in a youth home and completed therapy.

AdvertisementHe was required to register when he turned 18. The appeals court says it's not punishment but a way to inform the public even if the risk of another offense is low.

It is a frightening fact that, in a time of unprecedented advances in communication technology, the quality of that communication is in sharp decline.

Indeed in American Culture, quality journalism seems to be in crisis. Newspapers are closing, broadcast news rooms are being emptied of some of the brightest and most experienced reporters and public scrutiny of public business...particularly in the government...is absent at best and intentionally skewed at worst.

Robert McChesney brings his educated viewpoint to this crisis in the communications era. McChesney is the author of several books on media and politics, professor of communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, host of the weekly talk show, Media Matters, on WILL-AM radio, and cofounder of the media reform organization Free Press. Free Press Co Founder and journalist John Nichols is his collaborator on this important new book

Not only does "The Death and Life of American Journalism" Take a close look at the forces...some economic, some accidental and some deliberate...that have put the craft of the journalist in a state of crisis...but the book also details how the same social and technological forces that have endangered the craft can revitalize it...and revitalize America in the Process.

For additional information on Robert McChesney "The Death and Life of American Journalism" please visit http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Death-and-Life-of-American-Journalism