Obviously, The Harvard Crimson is not The Washington Post. Still, I'd like to draw a parallel and I hope you'll find it a useful one: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were not told about what came to be known as the Watergate scandal.

No-one held a public event or called a press conference. The reporters pushed hard and uncovered a major scandal. They pressed for some information in order to do this, but it was information which they felt was valuable to their readers. In doing so, the pair became stars in probably the biggest investigative reporting coup ever.

But according to some definitions I've heard tossed around in recent weeks, Woodward and Bernstein would be guilty of "making news."

The story of Watergate didn't fall into their laps; they had to hunt for it in some places that were perhaps before perceived as private. Their methods were unorthodox, but not necessarily unprincipled. They discovered and revealed information that could have been harmful to the Post's readers had it remained secret.

This is the principle upon which The Crimson stands behind the investigative feature which reporter Jonathan Lewin published February 1, and it's one which I agree with.

While The Crimson received only one formal response to the story, some readers have written at length on an Internet newsgroup about concerns that speak to fundamental issues of journalistic integrity.

How far can The Crimson, in accordance with the standards of the newspaper industry, go in "making news?" Lewin has been charged with just that in reading a public log file maintained on the Internet by Harvard Arts and Sciences Computer Services [HASCS].

Lewin read the file and documented gross violations of user privacy--he was able to identify students and faculty who downloaded pornographic images.

No names were revealed in the article. Each person involved was contacted for comment before the story ran. And most of those people thanked The Crimson for letting them know that the Internet activity they thought was private really wasn't.

Any student could have accessed this file. But in reading this file Lewin has himself been accused of invading the privacy of the net users whom he found conducting sometimes-illegal activity.

In finding this story Lewin did nothing illegal, and nothing that any good reporter at a major newspaper doesn't do every day: keep his (or her) eyes open.

Technically Lewin, or any Harvard student, cannot in compliance with the rules of Harvard College access any file that was not created by that student.

But this file was created by noone--so the question of who can rightfully access it is has no clear answer. Lewin was also given permission to read the file by HASCS Director Franklin M. Steen, who said Lewin's actions would not constitute an invasion of privacy.

Investigative reporting is something you might not expect from The Crimson--it's something The Crimson doesn't do often and it doesn't necessarily do well.

But this kind of reporting is common practice and fair play unless the paper does something illegal.

Investigative journalism is not "making" news as much as "finding" it, and I think that's a substantive difference. Lewin did not create the log file, nor did he manipulate it in order to allow himself or other students to see what was in it. Students other than Lewin had seen the file, and the tremendous potential for blackmail was acknowledged by almost everyone involved.

Lewin legally could have revealed the file as soon as he found out about it. Instead he notified Harvard authorities and agreed to wait until the file was supposed to have been closed before he ran the story. He also legally could have revealed the names of those whose activities he tracked, but did not.

This was not for fear of lawsuits but out of respect for The Crimson's community of readers. True, some readers might have wanted to know names and specifics. In fact a majority of readers probably would have been interested in that kind of information.

But the real issue was Internet privacy. The story itself, because it emphasized the sexy sub-topic of Internet porn so early and at such length, did not make its point as clearly as it could have.

Computer privacy was and is the main issue, one which has also been recently addressed by other papers. An article on the cover of the business section of Feb. 22's New York Times says the Internet is almost hopelessly insecure. The story warned readers that they should consider nothing which they send to be truly private. This was exactly what Lewin's article illustrated.

The Crimson showed its readers a picture of a situation which some might not have wanted to see. Because of the story and Lewin's personal follow-up with Steno, the file was closed.

All of the users involved said they believed this was a good and necessary step. They also said they appreciated the fact that The Crimson alerted them to some real dangers on the Internet. Sharing valuable information with Harvard students is the reason The Crimson exists. I think that's what it did with this story.

The more important overriding issue of Internet privacy could have been better presented. But there was no foul play in the reporting of this story. And unlike some of what The Crimson prints, this story scored points with me because it did make a difference.