Techdirt. Stories filed under "journalists"

Journalists Have No Obligation To Cover A Story About You The Way You Want Them To Cover It

Mike Masnick — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 14:57:16 PST

As we've discussed a few times, we seem to get threatened with a lawsuit approximately once a month or so (though they tend to come in bunches after extended quiet periods). The threats usually fall under one of two categories: someone upset about something we wrote about them, or someone upset about something someone in the comments said about them. When it's cases where people are upset about something that we have said, often the person is angry that we didn't call them to get their side of the story, as if that were some sort of legal requirement. We've seen such claims very recently, in fact.

However, in a recent court case in California that looked at exactly that question, a judge made it pretty damn clear that journalists have absolutely no legal requirement to reach out to the people they are writing about. The story is a fairly crazy one. The Associated Press wrote a story about a court granting Sheryl Crow a three years restraining order against a guy named Philip Sparks, who had admitted to threatening to shoot both Crow and famed movie exec Harvey Weinstein. The AP reported that Sparks had accused both Crow and Weinstein of "stealing $7.5 million from him, videotaping and following him without permission and leaving him homeless." It also reported that a forensic psychiatrist had testified that "Mr. Sparks is unambiguously delusional."

In response, Sparks sued the Associated Press, arguing that the article was defamatory. Since it was filed in California and California has a good anti-SLAPP law, the AP filed an anti-SLAPP motion. Sparks tried to argue against the First Amendment: "There needs to be a boundary between the Media and the First Amendment, otherwise the Media can hide behind the First Amendment and publish anything that they want regardless if the statements are false, or violate one's civil rights." Of course, that's not true. Defamation laws still apply to the press, but the key issue here seemed to really be about whether or not the AP needed to report on Sparks' version of the story.

Thankfully, the judge pointed out that this was simply untrue. The "tentative order" from LA Superior Court judge Rolf Treu has some useful quotes. As an aside, the website for the LA Superior Court is horrifically bad and nearly impossible to navigate. The fact that it says: "This site is best viewed using Internet Explorer 5 or higher." should tell you something... After a fair bit of poking and prodding, I finally found the ruling, which I've published here and embedded below. But the key point is that there is no requirement to get his side of the story:

To the extent Plaintiff takes issue with Defendant's failure to report facts that Plaintiff raised during the hearing (see Pl.'s Response filed 1/11/13 p. 12-13 (concerning a security expert who pretended to be Plaintiff's lawyer and challenges to Dr. Glaser's diagnosis)), Defendant is not required to present Plaintiff's side of his story or his key facts

The court also pointed out that the AP had no requirement to report on the fact that the doctor who declared him delusional had been sanctioned by the Medical Board of California, noting that "there is no such requirement." The judge makes the key point: as long as the AP reported accurately, they were not required to cover the story the way Sparks wanted them to cover it:

To the average reader, the substance of judicial proceeding was the issuance of the restraining orders, which was accurately described by Defendant's article.

While this just confirms that which was already known, it seemed useful to remind people of this basic fact. Just because someone doesn't contact you or report things the way you want them to, it doesn't mean it's against the law.

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Intellectual Ventures Still Giving Tours Of The Sizzle To Distract Journalists From The Lack Of Steak

Mike Masnick — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 03:12:37 PDT

It never fails. Whenever more and more people start discussing what a downright dangerous company Intellectual Ventures is, and how its massive trolling operations are a huge hindrance to actual innovation, IV's PR people invite some journalists to "take a tour" of the part of the building where they have people "inventing" stuff, hoping they'll talk about what a miraculous special company IV is. It happened two years ago with Gizmodo, and this year, they had News.com take a tour. Thankfully, unlike the piece a couple years ago, News.com doesn't ignore the elephant in the room, and makes sure to point out much of the criticism surrounding Intellectual Ventures. However, it also lets claims like this one slide:

"We think of the problem we want to solve," says Tim Londergan, Intellectual Ventures' senior director of investment strategy. "[We] find great inventions and get them to market."

Um. And how many of them have they been able to "get to market"? The answer is exactly zero over twelve years. Despite $5 billion in investment money (using something of a pyramid scheme to get companies to pay up early to get some upside) and 70,000 "intellectual assets" (many of which were bought at fire sale prices from university tech transfer offices who were desperate to prove that tech transfer offices work, and who needed to get them off the books). A grand total of two companies have spun off, but neither has anything on the market, nor will they for many years. There's something to be said for not rushing ideas, but $5 billion and twelve years... if you're really looking for problems you want to solve and bringing the solutions to market, you'd expect a slightly higher hit rate.

Of course, given that investors in IV are also beginning to realize that their returns suck, you have to worry that IV is only going to ramp up the one part of its business that actually does make money: either shaking companies down by claiming they violate broad patents, or selling off patents to smaller shell firms that will do the same thing for them.

For all of Nathan Myhrvold's ridiculous talk of doing God's work, the company can't try to hide the fact that it's become a giant tax on companies who actually innovate, by hiring some scientists to do crazy experiments in fancy offices, none of which seem to have any likelihood of being useful. Innovation is about bringing products to market. Trolling is about forcing actual innovators to pay up for succeeding. IV has never been about innovation and is focused almost entirely on trolling. Having some scientists working on dopey projects that look good for the press doesn't change any of that.

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Online News Association Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA

Mike Masnick — Fri, 6 Jan 2012 15:22:14 PST

As Lamar Smith continues to live in his fantasy world that there's no real opposition to SOPA, more and more groups keep coming out against it. The latest is a big one -- and a big surprise. The Online News Association has officially come out against both SOPA and PIPA. The letter is thorough, detailed and comprehensive about why the bills are problematic, focusing mainly on SOPA. And it's unequivocal in its condemnation of the bill:

[W]e believe SOPA would do little to stem those problems and would actually cause harm to the Internet and to the American public.

Indeed, the act -- and its counterpart in the Senate, the PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA) -- would inappropriately shut down websites, disrupt the free flow of legitimate information and limit Americans from fully exercising their First Amendment rights.

The letter then highlights multiple problems specifically in the bill (contrary to Smith's claim that no one has identified the specific problems of the bill). ONA notes that under SOPA, overblocking will be quite common:

Forcing payment services and ad networks to mete out punishment raises a host of concerns. For starters, SOPA stipulates that any payment service or ad network that fails to comply with a notice served by the copyright owner and based on the court order can be sued for damages and held liable. On the other hand, any service that cuts ties with a suspected site after receiving notice of a court order, may not be sued for damages by that site “for any acts reasonably designed to comply” with the order.

It’s not hard to imagine, then, that a service provider, acting with abundance of caution and out of its own self-interest, will simply cut off services to entire sites that have been accused of infringement, even if the court order only applies to portion of the site. Such actions could even extend to other sites owned by the same entity.

The group also raises concerns about the anti-circumvention provisions (which aren't limited to foreign players) and how that could cause all sorts of problems for those who provide legitimate tools. Following that, they raise key concerns about the impact on social media sites -- which the letter notes is "one of the most profound cultural developments on the web."

This is pretty big. Journalists, as a group, rarely stake out political positions or take official positions on anything political at all. To have them, as a group, come out against SOPA/PIPA shows just what a disaster these bills are. How much longer will the bills' supporters pretend that there isn't widespread opposition? How much longer can Lamar Smith, Bob Goodlatte, Howard Berman and John Conyers ignore the detailed concerns of the American public?

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Journalists And Key Engineers Who Built The Internet: Completely Opposed To SOPA

Mike Masnick — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:11:32 PST

Another day, and another group of influential folks have come out against SOPA. First up, the more surprising one: the American Society of News Editors (ASNE), a large group of journalists and editors have spoken out against the bill. And these are people who SOPA supporters are including in their list of the "copyright intensive industries" and yet they don't want this bill, because they know it'll increase liability for doing what they do every day.

Separately, a who's who list of 83 internet engineers has come out against SOPA. This is basically everyone who built the core infrastructure that the internet is based on, and they're not at all comfortable with the bill. That should say something. Remember the House's SOPA hearing that didn't have a single technical expert on the panel? Perhaps they should have held a hearing that included some of these people, who all seem very opposed to the bill.

Censorship of Internet infrastructure will inevitably cause network errors and security problems. This is true in China, Iran and other countries that censor the network today; it will be just as true of American censorship. It is also true regardless of whether censorship is implemented via the DNS, proxies, firewalls, or any other method. Types of network errors and insecurity that we wrestle with today will become more widespread, and will affect sites other than those blacklisted by the American government.

The current bills -- SOPA explicitly and PIPA implicitly -- also threaten engineers who build Internet systems or offer services that are not readily and automatically compliant with censorship actions by the U.S. government. When we designed the Internet the first time, our priorities were reliability, robustness and minimizing central points of failure or control. We are alarmed that Congress is so close to mandating censorship-compliance as a design requirement for new Internet innovations. This can only damage the security of the network, and give authoritarian governments more power over what their citizens can read and publish.

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Should Shield Laws Protect Journalists? Or Journalism?

Mike Masnick — Fri, 9 Dec 2011 18:50:36 PST

Mathew Ingram has some excellent coverage of a bad ruling in Oregon, wherein a blogger was found not to be covered by the state's shield law (protecting her ability to hide sources) because she wasn't affiliated with some big media organization:

...although defendant is a self-proclaimed “investigative blogger” and defines herself as “media,” the record fails to show that she is affiliated with any newspaper, magazine, periodical, book, pamphlet, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system. Thus, she is not entitled to the protections of the law.

Mathew's post covers a number of other recent cases that have been more broad in saying who counts as a journalist. And, of course, there have been attempts at creating a federal shield law for journalists.

But what really strikes me about this, is that a ruling like this seems to be looking at the wrong issue. It's not about whether or not it protects journalists, but whether or not it protects journalism. That is, in a few similar rulings, it always seems to come down to the affiliations of the person -- with the claim from some that if they're not working for a "media organization" then it means that "everyone" is protected by the shield law. We can discuss whether or not everyone should be covered by such a law, but even that misses the point (in a big way). The fight isn't over who should be covered, but what. The point is to protect journalism. And journalism is defined by the action, not the person or their affiliations. Anyone can do journalism -- associated or not. This does not mean that everything is journalism, however.

For example, I've noted plenty of times that I am not a "journalist." However, at times, I most certainly engage in journalism.

This can be true of almost anyone. If what they are doing for the sake of gathering some information is in the process of gathering that information to better inform the world of a subject, I think it's fair to call it journalism. However, that does not make the protections so broad that everything can be kept secret. In such situations, information can be revealed when it was not done specifically for the purposes of informing the public.

Unfortunately, this distinction between journalism and journalist seems to get lost all too often in these discussions, and it's why we get bad decisions like this one.

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Texas Governor Blocks Reporters He Doesn't Like From Reading His Tweets

Mike Masnick — Wed, 2 Mar 2011 10:33:01 PST

It's true that Twitter has a nifty "block" function, if you really want to block someone who is annoying you or who you don't like from reading your tweets -- and I've certainly seen various celebrities use it to block some of their more annoying "haters." However, if you're a politician, it's probably a bit extreme to block the local media who cover you. However, that's exactly what Texas Governor Rick Perry has done. He's blocked a few Texas political reporters from following his account. This seems particularly short-sighted for two key reasons:

It won't actually stop them from reading his account. The "block" functionality is pretty simplistic. You're really only blocked if you're logged in, so a "blocked" reporter can simply log out and look directly at the account or just get someone else who can follow the feed to pass along, or even retweet the messages. So it doesn't really block the reporters from following Governor Perry.
All it really does is call much more attention to the fact that Governor Perry apparently has a really thin skin around certain reporters -- perhaps not the sort of message he really should be giving out.

In other words, this action does nothing to actually stop those reporters from reading his feed, but plenty to damage the public perception of Governor Perry. It's difficult to see how there's any benefit at all in that for a politician. And, this wasn't just a decision of some political flack, either. Apparently, Perry's office has said that the only person who has access to Governor Perry's Twitter account is the Governor himself.

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Feds Got Reporter's Phone, Credit Card & Bank Records In Trying To Track Leaker

Mike Masnick — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 11:46:00 PST

Back in January, when I saw Daniel Ellsberg speak, one of the things he noted was how much more aggressive the Obama administration appeared to be in going after leakers than any previous administration. Ellsberg's theory -- which he admitted was based on just his intuition -- was that President Obama is actually quite embarrassed by some of the things he's doing and is, thus, more aggressive in trying to stop leaks, knowing that his actions are damaging his reputation. I don't know if that's true, but there is growing evidence of the level of questionable activities from the Obama administration even in going after leakers. Ellsberg noted at the time that the Obama administration has brought more indictments for leaking than all other presidents combined before him.

The latest is the report that came out late last week that the government, in going after leakers, got access to reporter James Risen's phone records, bank details and credit card statements. As the report notes, this is pretty extreme:

Although there have been other public controversies over subpoenas -- real and threatened -- to reporters in recent years, there have been few, if any, cases in which it has been documented that federal prosecutors obtained the bank records and credit reports of journalists.

It's not entirely clear if all of these activities took place under the Obama administration or previous administrations, but multiple people quoted in the article say this kind of activity has been much more common in the Obama Justice Department. For a President who has positioned himself as being a big supporter of press freedoms, this looks really hypocritical. Spying on reporters is bad. As the report notes, Risen was subpoenaed directly twice, but both times a judge reasonably quashed the subpoenas. So, for the administration to basically go around all that and get records from others is pretty bad.

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CNN Claims 'Something Must Be Done' About Anonymous Bloggers

Mike Masnick — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:45:49 PDT

If you follow political news even slightly, by now, you've probably heard about the whole Shirley Sherrod incident, involving an edited video of a talk she gave, which took her quotes out of context and made it appear she was saying exactly the opposite of what she was actually saying. The original video appeared on Andrew Breitbart's website, so it seemed kind of odd in discussing this incident, that two CNN anchors spent the majority of a video segment attacking anonymity on the internet. The first two minutes just complain about the internet in general, aided by a typically cranky Andrew Keen, but after the Keen segment, Kyra Phillips and John Roberts focus on the fact that people won't put their name behind what they say online: Of course, anonymity had nothing to do with this incident at all. All of the players were known, so it seems odd to pick on anonymity. On top of that, both Phillips and Roberts seem woefully clueless on the subject of anonymity and liability. Roberts notes that Keen told him about companies that try to ruin other companies by posting false information online. What companies? He doesn't say. Where's the proof that this is happening? He doesn't say. Why the companies who have had falsehoods spread about them by other companies haven't sued for defamation? He doesn't say. In fact, Phillips falsely implies that there are no remedies for this, and suggests it's ridiculous that people have "freedom of defamation." She goes on to say that something needs to be done, and implies that the law needs to change, saying "something's going to have to be done legally," and that there needs to be "accountability." Um.... except defamation laws already allow people to sue over anonymous falsehoods. You would think that newscasters arguing over this point would know the basics like that.

But an even bigger point, as raised by Glenn Greenwald, is the fact that CNN relies on anonymous quotes all the time. It doesn't take long to find articles on CNN that quote anonymous officials. For them to rage against "cowards" who won't stand behind what they say, and then to regularly quote "anonymous" sources, seems pretty damn hypocritical. Phillips claims anonymity online is "very unfair." Phillips also attacks the media for "giving anonymous bloggers credit or credibility." But again, CNN quotes all kinds of anonymous sources all the time.

Later on, Roberts suggests anonymous blogging "has its place" and suggests that place is Iran and North Korea. But not the US. The authors of The Federalist Papers are rolling over in their graves.

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AP Sues Others For Copying Its Reporting, But Has No Problem Copying Bloggers Without Citation

Mike Masnick — Wed, 2 Jun 2010 08:41:46 PDT

You may have seen the story we recently had about a woman suing Google after she got hit by a car while following Google Maps' walking directions. In that post, we linked back to Danny Sullivan's post about this story at Search Engine Land (where he noted that Gary Price had tipped him off to the news). In our post, we recommended people read Danny's full writeup, highlighted some of the points he made and added a bit of our own analysis. Of course, it's a hot story, and so lots of other publications wrote up their own versions of it as well, and Danny is now pointing out that the vast majority of mainstream publications did not credit him at all with breaking the story -- some of whom even used the images that Sullivan created in their own stories without credit.

Of course, the one I find most interesting is the Associated Press. The story published by the AP basically repeats a lot of what Danny put in his report, but fails to mention that Danny had the story first, and did a lot of the journalistic legwork in understanding what the story was about. Now, I've gone over this issue before in the past: and I don't see any legal reason why others should be required to cite their sources, but do believe it's the neighborly thing to do, and tends to lead to goodwill back in your direction as well.

But, when we're talking about the AP, this is an organization that has sent DMCA notices and threatened a blogger with legal action for linking to AP stories along with a headline and a short (35 word) excerpt. This is the organization that has claimed it was planning to sue others for creating similar stories and specifically sued All Headline News for supposedly rewriting its stories. This is also the same AP that thinks it gets to define fair use, and that means that any use of 5 words or more is not fair use. This is the same AP that claims that creating an entirely new artistic work based on an AP photograph is, in no way, fair use.

Yet, this AP has no problem making use of Danny's original reporting, without even so much as giving him credit?

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Appeals Court Upholds Ruling That Blog Commenter Was Not A Journalist

Mike Masnick — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 09:20:00 PDT

While lots of attention was paid to the claims that the confiscation of Gizmodo reporter Jason Chen's computer's would "settle" whether bloggers are considered journalists, the details in that case suggest otherwise. However, a much more important case on that particular question was decided late last week. It's the case of Shellee Hale, which we've covered in the past. Basically, Hale posted some information claiming a security breach at another company. She revealed this information as a comment on another site -- and when she was sued, the company demanded she reveal where she got that information from. She claimed that her sources were protected, as she was a journalist.

The court ruled against her, saying that because she had "no connection to any legitimate news publication," her own investigations weren't journalism. That's troubling for a variety of reasons, especially given the wide latitude in determining what constitutes a "legitimate news publication." Hale appealed, and unfortunately, the ruling last week from the appeals court upheld the lower court's ruling:

"Simply put, new media should not be confused with news media," wrote Superior Court Appellate Judge Anthony J. Parrillo.

The court also claimed that her activities were not journalism because they "exhibited none of the recognized qualities or characteristics traditionally associated with the news process, nor has she demonstrated an established connection or affiliation with any news entity."

Again, this is problematic. In an age of participatory journalism, people who do journalism don't need "an established connection or affiliation with any news entity." They can easily establish one with various sites, or they can simply set themselves up as a "news organization" on their own. Furthermore, as technology has changed the whole process of journalism, there's an awful lot about journalism today that "exhibits none of the recognized qualities or characteristics traditionally associated with the news process." That's because the news process is constantly changing -- such as its expansion into participatory efforts these days. This ruling is troubling in that it looks backwards, not forward. It's also a reminder that rather than various broken state laws that shield journalists, it really is time for a federal shield law to protect journalists.

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Could Gizmodo's iPhone Scoop Settle Whether Bloggers Count As Journalists?

Carlo Longino — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:13:00 PDT

If you were anywhere near a techy site on the internet last week, you probably noticed the sensational story of how a prototype of a forthcoming iPhone got left behind in a Silicon Valley bar, and eventually ended up in the hands (and on the pages) of gadget site Gizmodo. Given Apple's history of cracking down on new product leaks, it wasn't too surprising to see the company ask for the phone back, nor to hear rumors that police were looking into the matter. However, it was a little surprising to read today that California police have seized computers and other gear from one of Gizmodo's editors, breaking down his door in the process. The COO of Gizmodo parent Gawker Media alleges that the search was illegal, as the editor is protected under California's shield law, which protects journalists from revealing their sources. Gawker founder Nick Denton says the case should let us find out if "bloggers count as journalists", but that's not completely clear. The shield law exists to protect unnamed sources, not to let journalists commit crimes (such as receiving stolen property) and then cover them up under the guise of their work. So while the case may not settle if bloggers are seen as journalists in the eyes of the law, it should settle once and for all that age-old question of whether or not an iPhone prototype left in a bar by an Apple employee constitutes stolen property.

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Is There A Bias In Expertise? Or Is The Problem Just In Silencing Discussion?

Mike Masnick — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 09:17:00 PDT

Jay Rosen points us to a worthwhile read by Lane Wallace in The Atlantic, concerning "the bias of veteran journalists." The basic concept is that veteran journalists think they know so much about a story that they have an angle going into the story, and only ask questions to support that story. It is not claiming that this is a political bias -- which is the usual charge thrown out at reporters -- but that the bias is in the fact that they think they know the story before they really know the story. As an example, she points to her own recent experience on a certain piece of technology:

A few weeks ago, I attended the public launch of a company's product that had, until that point, been kept tightly under wraps. The product involved a breakthrough approach and new technology that had the potential of having a revolutionary impact on its industry, as well on consumers around the world. Unlike most of the journalists covering the event, I was not an expert on that particular industry. It wasn't my normal "beat." The reason I was there was because I'd been interviewing the company's CEO over the previous several months for a book project. But that also meant that while I wasn't an expert about the industry in general, I was in the odd position of knowing more about the company's "secret" product than any other journalist in the room.

It was an eye-opening experience. A lot of major news outlets and publications were represented at the press conference following the announcement. A few very general facts about the product had been released, but the reporters had only been introduced to details about it a half hour earlier. There was still a lot about how it worked, how it differed from other emerging products, and why the company felt so confident about its evolution and economic viability, that remained to be clarified.

But the reporters' questions weren't geared toward getting a better understanding of those points. They were narrowly focused on one or two aspects of the story. And from the questions that were being asked, I realized--because I had so much more information on the subject--that the reporters were missing a couple of really important pieces of understanding about the product and its use. And as the event progressed, I also realized that the questions that might have uncovered those pieces weren't being asked because the reporters already had a story angle in their heads and were focused only on getting the necessary data points to flesh out and back up what they already thought was the story.

Fascinating stuff. She then backs this up by pointing to a recent study on "experts" and how they tend to be worse at predicting things, often because they're so certain of the outcome that they miss key elements of why something is different, or why what they expect won't happen. That is, they approach the scenario with a knowing viewpoint, and therefore don't understand why it's a big deal. This leads her to quote an anecdotal claim by a friend who's an editor, saying that new beat reporters ask the best questions, because they don't assume they already know the answers to stuff.

I'll admit, after reading the column, my first thought was total agreement. It makes a lot of sense, right? And it certainly fits in well with Rosen's concept of the Church of the Savvy, which involves reporters who are more focused on using their soap box to make people think that they're connected to the inside and "savvy" with how everything works, that they focus more on describing the process, rather than reporting the facts (and debunking the non-facts). I tend to agree with that general sentiment, and this concept of "expert bias" initially felt right as well. In a different arena we see it all the time -- when we present stories about the economic impacts of copyright law or patent law, we often get lawyers who stop by to insist that this is ridiculous -- and we should trust them because they're the expert lawyers, in spite of the actual evidence.

And, no, I'm not claiming I'm above this kind of bias either. Everyone falls into this kind of trap at some point as well -- assuming you know more about a story than you really do. If you're crafting a story, you have a general model of "what the world looks like" and you certainly build your story based on that. But no one has a perfect crystal ball. No one can understand what variables will really be key in the future. No one can always get it right. At the very least, I try to learn from my own mistakes, and look back at why I was wrong (though, of course, no one gets that process right all the time either!).

Still, even after nodding my head through Wallace's column, after thinking about it a bit, I'm no longer sure I really believe it makes sense. Go back to her opening anecdote. In that case, she's actually as guilty as the reporters she's mocking. The reason she thinks they're missing the story is because she does think she's an expert: because of her time with the company, she felt she was more of an expert about that "secret" product, than those who knew the industry. And so she got upset that they didn't follow her pre-conceived storyline. Really, it's a bit of a kettle/pot scenario. What if those other reporters, who knew the industry, actually were right -- because they knew the wider industry and the wider impact of this product, rather than only getting the one side of the story from PR people over an "insider" session (savvy!).

On top of that, I'm not convinced about the "cub reporters ask better questions" claim either. I've been to plenty of press events, where those reporters don't ask any questions at all -- because they're not comfortable enough to do so -- and I've also been to events where clearly unknowledgeable reporters ask really bad questions -- or are more open to being "fed" press releases as stories, because it's nicely packaged up for those who don't know how to ask the hard questions.

So where does that leave us? Yes, there is a problem in the bias of expertise, where people are so sure of their opinion going in that they may miss some underlying key point. But I don't think that means that you want want naive folks covering a story either. What's needed is that convergence of voices. It's the discussion that comes out after all of this which presents the real value. It's one of the reasons why we tend to value the discussions on this site so much. If I say something stupid, people will call me on it, and there's a good discussion in the comments -- from which we all get to learn.

In thinking about it some more, it seems that the real issue is not the fact that one person has too much or too little expertise in a particular subject. It's that the whole spectrum is valuable -- and that spectrum comes out in discussion, not in positioning a single person as being the only person who can report on/talk about a particular subject. The problem comes in the idea that any particular situation involves "the word from on high," rather than the starting point for discussion.

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Senate Says Amateur Journalists Don't Deserve Shield Protection

Mike Masnick — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:08:00 PDT

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

Mike Masnick — Mon, 6 Jul 2009 12:46:08 PDT

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

Mike Masnick — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:16:00 PDT

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

Mike Masnick — Thu, 7 May 2009 15:40:25 PDT

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

Mike Masnick — Fri, 1 May 2009 05:23:00 PDT

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?

Mike Masnick — Mon, 9 Mar 2009 21:21:00 PDT

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

Mike Masnick — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:31:48 PST

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

Mike Masnick — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:10:00 PST

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

Mike Masnick — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:52:28 PDT

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

Mike Masnick — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 13:02:00 PST

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...

Mike Masnick — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 15:32:37 PST

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

Mike Masnick — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 19:11:00 PST

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

Mike Masnick — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:36:07 PDT

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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