Senate Says Amateur Journalists Don't Deserve Shield Protection

from the and-why-not? dept

Congress has been working on a federal "shield" law that that allows journalists to protect their sources. This is an important concept, and many states already have local laws on that front. Unfortunately, as the Senate was working on its version of the bill, it's apparently decided that the law should only apply to professional journalists who make their living that way. If you happen to just write a blog post that exposes some sort of wrong, you'll have no shield protections. Or if you write for a participatory media site and blow a whistle, again, you'll have no shield protection for your sources. While not all that surprising (do you really think our Senators understand the value of participatory journalism), it's still disappointing.

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Judge Says Blogs Not Legitimate News Source; No Shield Protections

from the seems-to-leave-a-lot-of-leeway dept

Back in May we wrote about a lawsuit questioning whether or not a blogger could use journalism shield laws to protect a source who sent her info she used for a blog post. The company the info was about is suing her for slander (which is odd, since slander is usually spoken, while libel is written). The woman, Shellee Hale tried to claim that she was protected under New Jersey's shield law, which allows a journalist to protect sources. In writing about this case originally, we pointed out that the judge in question clearly did not know much about the internet, and via his questions seemed positively perplexed that anyone would blog at all: "Why would a guy put all this stuff on a blog? Does he have nothing better to do?"

Thus, it should come as no surprise that the judge has now ruled that Hale is not protected by shield laws because she has "no connection to any legitimate news publication." This is troubling for a variety of reasons. First, it leaves open entirely to interpretation what exactly is a "legitimate news publication." The judge seems to think it only applies to old school media, saying: "Even though our courts have liberally construed the shield law, it clearly was not intended to apply to any person communicating to another person." Sure, but that doesn't mean that an individual who posts something in the pursuit of reporting isn't media as well. It looks like Hale will appeal this decision, and hopefully other courts will recognize that you don't have to work for a big media organization to be a reporter any more.

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Former College Journalists Learning That Google Is Their Permanent Record

from the and-they-don't-like-it dept

We've discussed in the past how Google has become a version of the mythical permanent record that our teachers warned us about in school, but for some it's becoming embarrassing. We've all heard the stories of folks who lost jobs or dates due to their social networking profiles, but what about what they wrote in their college newspaper? Apparently, professional journalists are so upset about the quality of their work from when they were in college, that they're asking universities to take down their old writings, especially since it sometimes ranks better in Google than their modern work. Thankfully, most college papers are refusing to take down the content, but it is a reminder (once again) that everything you write can, and will, be used against you sooner or later.

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Fact Checking? Newspapers Duped By Wikipedia Edit Again

from the nobody-fact-checks-any-more dept

Earlier this year, we noted how the press got caught relying on Wikipedia when they reprinted an error (amusingly, those press clippings were then used to "verify" the info in Wikipedia). It appears to have happened again. Clay Shirky points us to the news that a student in Ireland added a fake quote to the Wikipedia page of Maurice Jarre, a French musician who died in March. The student added the fake (but potentially real-sounding) quote soon after Jarre died, and many reporters apparently included the quote in their obituaries/writeups about Jarre. Of course, Wikipedia-haters may use this to point out the horrible questionable nature of Wikipedia content, but that's missing the point. Everyone knows that Wikipedia content should be considered suspect since anyone can edit it. It's a known quantity. For the most part, then, if you're a reporter, it should never be used as a sole source on something, but for background info that can also be checked elsewhere. The real issue was that the press didn't do this -- and didn't do their jobs in actually confirming the info.

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New Jersey Case Looks At Whether Bloggers Can Protect Sources

from the who's-the-media-these-days? dept

There have been a number of cases recently that have tested whether various laws that protect journalists from having to give up their sources also apply to people publishing content online in forums, email groups or blogs. The latest, sent in by someone Anonymous, is taking place in New Jersey, where a woman who revealed a security breach in the software of a company called Too Much Media is being sued for slander in revealing the breach. There are numerous issues with the lawsuit, including the oddity that they're suing for slander for online comments, since slander is for spoken words, whereas libel is normally applied to the written word. It's also odd that they're suing considering the fact that they don't deny the security breach existed, but dispute the claim that customer info (including credit card details) were exposed, because they claim the security breach was brief and no info was compromised. That seems like a pretty weak defense.

However, the real battle seems to be over the attempt to determine how the woman, Shellee Hale, found out about the breach in the first place. She's refusing to give that up, claiming that she has a right to protect her sources, just like any journalist. And while Hale writes multiple different blogs, and has written for many mainstream publications (including the Wall Street Journal and Business Week), Too Much Media claims that she doesn't deserve protections afforded to journalists because she wasn't working for any real publication and is just a blogger. The article quotes someone who says that if the court sides with Hale:

"then everyone is a journalist and the privilege becomes meaningless."

I don't see how that's actually true. In fact, I'd argue the other way. It's not that it becomes meaningless, but that it becomes very, very meaningful -- especially in an era where we're looking for new ways to prop up investigative journalism. If everyone's a journalist, and everyone has a reasonable expectation that their sources are shielded, then we're much more likely to continue to root out corruption. If this protection is somehow reserved for some "special" credentialed people, then it becomes that much harder to expose corruption.

Unfortunately, it appears that the judge in the case is almost entirely computer and internet illiterate, needing to ask for explanations for a variety of things during the court proceedings. He seemed entirely confused by the very concept of people blogging for personal interest:

"Why would a guy put all this stuff on a blog? Does he have nothing better to do?" Locasio asked. "Does he get paid?"

The judge, who apparently is about to retire in a couple months, also didn't understand the difference between blogs, message boards and forums, and was apparently unfamiliar with instant messaging. It's difficult to see why someone entirely unfamiliar with the technology should be able to judge a case like this, where understanding what's happening online is crucial to understanding what the case is really about.

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Should Bloggers Be Afforded The Same Rights Granted To Journalists?

from the lawsuits-galore... dept

Paul Alan Levy writes "Together with the ACLU of Virginia and the Thomas Jefferson Center for Freedom of Expression, we have intervened in a case pending in Buckingham County, Virginia in which a plaintiff in a defamation case retaliated against a blogger who covered his defamation suit in less than flattering terms by sending a highly invasive subpoena that demands production of the blogger's communications with his sources, IP numbers of all who posted on his web site or even READ the web site. There have been only a handful of cases in which courts have addressed whether bloggers should be treated as journalists for the purpose of considering the reporters' privilege. We are also arguing that, in addition to protecting the commenters on the blog for the reasons usually argued -- protecting their right of anonymous speech -- posters on a journalist's blog should be treated as "sources" whose disclosure violates the journalist's own rights."

We've been seeing a lot of these types of cases lately. It would be good to get some more definitive rulings that establish both the rights of those who blog, as well as those who comment anonymously.

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NSA Whistleblower Claims US Journalists Were Regularly Spied On: Everything Collected

from the that-doesn't-seem-legal dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in the news, as revealed by Russell Tice, who was one of the major "whistleblowers" on the NSA's questionable warrantless wiretapping activities, that the NSA was not just (as the gov't has claimed) spying on known terrorist threats, but was spying on journalists on a regular basis. Specifically, they were collecting pretty much everything (emails, phone calls, etc.) on certain journalism organizations. He explains that he was officially put on a project supposedly to "weed out" that info, but that it was a deception so that the NSA had some cover if called on it. Instead, he found that all of the data was being recorded. This seems to be an even bigger breach of the surveillance laws. Now, before some people jump up and down in the comments about protecting us from terrorists -- the point here is that there are perfectly good laws allowing intelligence representatives to tap into communications of potential terrorists. The problem here is that it appears the administration went well beyond that, spied on those who were not at all involved in terrorist activities and did not use the legally prescribed process of obtaining warrants (probably because they never would have been granted).

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Time For Journalists To Take A Lesson From (Smart) Musicians

from the the-model-has-changed... dept

These days there are a few types of stories we see and write about consistently: (1) the legacy recording industry's troubles in adapting to a changing market, (2) the ability of a bunch of motivated, smart musicians, bucking the old way of doing things and finding tremendous success and (3) the legacy newspaper industry's troubles in adapting to a changing market. Given (1) and (2), you would think that (3) might lead to the obvious (4) of a bunch of motivated, smart journalists, bucking the old way of doing things and finding tremendous success. And, in fact, that is happening, particularly with upstart blogs, but it's not getting as much attention. Romenesko points us to what should be a must-read essay over at the Columbia Journalism Review, highlighting the fact that worried journalists should be studying up on the success stories of musicians who are succeeding even as the legacy recording industry struggles.

It makes a few key points (which I'm summarizing and paraphrasing in this list) that apply to both, but which don't always get as much attention in the journalism field:

• Give away as much content as possible to build a following
• Share, don't hoard
• Really engage and connect with your audience
• Be authentic
• Build your personal brand

Some journalists (and musicians!) will likely push back on some of these, but it seems pretty clear that the market is rewarding people who follow these steps, and punishing those who don't.

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Deutsche Telekom Pulls An HP: Accused Of Spying On Journalists And Board Members

from the HP-redux dept

Remember the infamous HP "pretexting" situation that involved HP's chair spying on board members and reporters? It probably shouldn't come as a surprise, but it looks like HP was hardly alone in that sort of enterprise. A few readers have sent in the story coming out of Germany that Deutsche Telekom may have been involved in a very similar operation, spying on board members and journalists trying to find the source of "leaks" to the press. In some ways, it sounds like Deutsche Telekom's efforts may have gone even further than HP's efforts -- though, they seem to have taken place roughly around the same time. Still, it appears that Deutsche's spying activities may have gone on even after the HP story was revealed, so the folks involved must have realized what would happen if the news ever got out.

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Sam Zell Ditches Internet Filters In The Newsroom

from the good-for-him dept

We were rather surprised last year to find out that the LA Times and other Tribune-owned newspapers had started employing web filters for journalists working at the newspaper. The filters were supposed to prevent journalists from visiting "inappropriate" sites, though failed to explain what a reporters was to do if he or she was actually reporting on inappropriate sites -- which should make you realize that there really are no inappropriate sites for a journalist. It looks like new Tribune owner Sam Zell is equally mystified by the policy and wasted little time getting rid of it with the following message:

"I do not see how a member of the Fourth Estate, dedicated to protecting the First Amendment, can censor what its own employees and partners can see. I have instructed that all content filters be removed. You are now exposed to the dangers of You Tube and Facebook. Please use your best judgment."

Somehow I get the feeling that Zell won't be joining the AFP in banning the use of Facebook and Wikipedia as sources.

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The Journalism Business Is Dying? Someone Forgot To Tell Sports Reporters...

from the time-to-go-into-sports-reporting dept

For all the whining from professional journalists about how the internet is killing newspapers and putting journalists out of work, apparently someone forgot to explain that some of the companies hiring journalists these days. The NY Times has an article noting how ESPN, Yahoo and Sports Illustrated have been slugging it out trying to hire sports reporters from various newspapers, sometimes at three times their existing salaries. Newspapers are complaining that they just can't keep their sports reporters -- which is a fairly amazing statement, because being a sports reporter is a dream job for many people. So, perhaps rather than freaking out about how the internet is "destroying" their business, journalists might want to start looking around at the new opportunities the internet is creating for journalists where they can keep doing what they do best, and actually earn a lot more money.

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Journalism Professor Says Citizen Journalists Should Be Regulated

from the ah,-the-old-elite-standards-again dept

There's just something about the idea a lack of "elite" gatekeepers that upsets some people. It's why you hear complaints about Wikipedia or blogs or home videos on YouTube. For some reason, there are a group of folks (often the former elitist gatekeepers) who feel that since not all of the content is great, useful or interesting, it all is problematic in some way or another. The latest to express this type of viewpoint is David Hazinski, a journalism professor and former NBC correspondent, claiming that "unfettered" citizen journalism is "too risky" and that it needs to be regulated (via Romenesko) by "official" media companies, handing out "certificates" to citizen journalists. Unfortunately, his basic premise seems to be incorrect. He states: "Supporters of "citizen journalism" argue it provides independent, accurate, reliable information that the traditional media don't provide." That's not quite true. While some supporters may claim that, in general the benefits of the idea that anyone can be a reporter isn't necessarily about reliable information, but about providing additional viewpoints and information to try to make sure that more of the story is out there for people to find. It's not necessarily about being better -- but just giving an outlet to people who can add more to the story. He's certainly right that it can be abused, but that's missing the point. Sure it can be abused. But so can the traditional press. What's more important is that such abuses can also be outed and brought to light, just like any other news story. Hazinski is right that professional journalists should be verifying the information provided by "citizen journalists" but that should be true of anyone they accept information from. Almost all of the complaints he lobs at these untrained journalists applies equally to the trained ones -- so it's hard to interpret this piece as anything but complaints from someone who doesn't like the riffraff encroaching on his turf.

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How Easily Congress Removed Protection From Citizen Journalists

from the no-profit?--no-protection! dept

The House of Representatives approved a bill this week that would give journalists protection to shield their sources rather than having to give them up. This is a rather important bill, and while there's little chance of it actually becoming a law at this point, Declan McCullough over at News.com does a great job showing how different versions of the bill continually watered down who was actually protected -- starting with anyone practicing journalism, shifting to those who made some money from journalism activities and finally moving to only covering those who make a substantial part of their living that way. Declan has the full text, highlighting the changes to each version. Of course, it's hard to see how this makes any sense. Why should your ability to make money from your journalistic efforts have any bearing on whether or not you can protect a source? Given the rise of so-called citizen journalism -- where just about anyone is a journalist -- why should only those who do it full time for money get protection?

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