My alma mater always makes me proud.
Sacramento State is involved in a hazing scandal. It's not terribly serious in that no one has been hurt or killed. Actually, it seems no one has even been forced to do something they didn't want to.
At the link above (to the intrepid State Hornet - which I can imagine had a month-long soul-searching exercise before going to print with this), you'll see blurred pictures taken off Facebook from a "freshman party" for the women's soccer team. No S&M or push-ups or anything. The worst offense seems to be that male genitalia was drawn on one of the players' neck.
If this is the worst hazing going around at State, that is good. I doubt it, though, so it makes the decision to print this stuff all the more curious. And whomever was in charge of blurring the faces in the photo? Try again. Anyone could easily grab the team roster, find the freshmen, and match faces to names. If you're going to blur the faces, make sure they aren't identifiable. Otherwise, why bother?
I don't know why this story ran, honestly. The only thing it will serve to do is embarass a few freshmen girls. It's not going to embarass the Athletic Department more than their own performance already has, and it's not going to change anything about the way sports teams at State conduct themselves. (Except, I imagine there will be a "no posting pictures from our parties to MySpace or Facebook, dumbsh*ts" policy.) To be frank, it's not even a decent clip for those reporters. It's written like a fifth-grade composition paper, the lede is like 57 words long, and it's a triple byline. And they actually use the word "blurred" in the lede, referring to the paper's relationship with athletics. My "cheese-dar" about blew up.
What a waste of time and energy for everyone involved.