Hot on the heels of last week's feature on Taser use (and giving us an opportunity, yet again, to post this fabulous illustration) comes news that Taser International told investors it had worked out an agreement with two Gannett Papers to review their articles on Tasers before they went to press. Check it out at the Columbia Journalism Review.

The piece, by Shahien Nasiripour of the Center for Investigative Reporting, says Taser told the Securities and Exchange Commission it had worked out a deal with the USA Today and the Arizona Republic that the newspapers "would review articles regarding the Taser device with us prior to publication," what Nasiripour describes as "an extraordinary breach of journalistic standards." The two papers are now calling for Taser to correct the record.

For those of you interested in journalistic ethics, the piece also draws a distinction between a journalist calling the subject of an allegation for comment, and calling the subject of an allegation to let them review the direction or tone of an article, and it's worth a read.

Taser's stock is down 74% since the first of this year, while news comes this morning of another wrongful death suit filed against the company in Los Angeles, where a man died after being Tasered 10 times.