Panel Ruled That Bloggers Are Entitled To The Same Protections As Journalists

 

A Panel Ruled That Bloggers Are Entitled To The Same Protections As Journalists.

via Federal Court: Bloggers Have Same First Amendment Rights As Journalists.

Because Cox’s blog post addressed a matter of public concern, even assuming that Gertz is limited to such speech, the district court should have instructed the jury that it could not find Cox liable for defamation unless it found that she acted negligently. See Gertz, 418 U.S. at 350. The court also should have instructed the jury that it could not award presumed damages unless it found that Cox acted with actual malice. Id. at 349.

The “new media” obviously concerns many politicians like Feinstein, who show the same hostility to bloggers as her predecessors once showed to the media before New York Times v. Sullivan. While the issues are not identical between the torts doctrines and media shield laws, the ruling undermines the argument that there is a clear line between bloggers and conventional reporters in dealing with public disputes and allegations. We have still not resolved how to draw the line (if such a line is possible) between conventional and new media. What is significant is that this court is refusing to expose bloggers to the type of pre-Sullivan liability that would dramatically chill Internet speech.

Crystal L. Cox, Whistleblower Media, Poking a Big of Fun at Big Media

Posted on December 12, 2011

 

Oftentimes when bloggers expose corruption, those bloggers are stripped of their rights within the very judicial system they are reporting corruption on. This WIN ends this, at least, in theory, and in a higher court judicial ruling.

Crystal Cox Whistleblower

I quote India Today Group chairman and editor-in-chief Aroon Puri, from indianexpress.com:

The role of the media is to question and uncover facts that interested parties are keen to suppress and verify information, rather than resort to activism and drive an agenda, a panel discussion on responsible journalism at the CII National Conference has brought out.

He goes on further to say, according to his rulebook on journalism, “the biggest poison in journalism is journalists, proprietors and editors who have an agenda, who have to promote a point of view or an interest” and that activism should be nowhere near journalism. But if it “happens as a byproduct”, he said “I am okay with it”

He said according to his rulebook on journalism, “the biggest poison in journalism is journalists, proprietors and editors who have an agenda, who have to promote a point of view or an interest” and that activism should be nowhere near journalism. But if it “happens as a byproduct”, he said “I am okay with it”

“Activism is a good idea and a lot of people are full-time activists. But by being activist, media gives good activists a bad name. The job of the media is not to be activist but to be active. Our training has been to avoid activism and to be scrutinising,”

Source: indianexpress.com, March 28, 2014

Michael Doherty ‏@JU5TLAW 7h The #CyrilSmith MP cover up – look at the levels of the establishment that assisted in the cover up of #childabuse pic.twitter.com/jy6nP3XG2Y

Thank you!

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I believe that keeping silent when an injustice is taking place is condoning it.