The New York Times has a lengthy piece today on a rape case in Steubenville, Ohio, which the paper has deemed particularly notable because it is "a sexual assault accusation in the age of social media, when teenagers are capturing much of their lives on their camera phones ... and then posting it on the Web, like a graphic, public diary." Without the social media angle, it would just be another story about a young woman raped by superstar athletes while she was blacked out from drinking too much alcohol in a hardcore football town. (The only "unique" part of the story, really, is that the two football players were actually charged with rape.)

Last week, we wrote about Savannah Dietrich, the teenager who tweeted about the high school boys who sexually assaulted her while she was drunk and unconscious and then photographed the whole horrific escapade with their phones. You can read all of the details about the Steubenville case over at the Times, but it's basically the same exact story — boys sexually assault and take photos of unconscious girl, town accuses girl of ruining the boys' lives by speaking out and "asking for it" by getting wasted in the first place — set in a football town straight out of Friday Night Lights where young football stars are glorified and rarely challenged.

In this case, accusations spread as quickly as did the photos of the unconscious girl, thanks in large part to blogger Alexandria Goddard, who covered the story on Prinniefied.com. She was on the story months ago:

http://jezebel.com/5969076/we-wouldnt-know-about-the-steubenville-rape-case-if-it-wasnt-for-the-blogger-who-complicated-things