Atlanta Media Bloggers

A good reason to be careful what you say

Link: Courts are asked to crack down on bloggers *

Maybe Libel Law would be a good topic for one of our future monthly meetings. I'm not trying to scare anyone, because you really don't need to fear threats of libel if you don't say bad things about people that you can't prove to be true.

The beauty of libel law is that Truth is the primary defense against libel. That's how you CYA. Just don't make things up.

And Fair Comment and Criticism (which allows you to review a film and say nasty things about how badly it sucks) is PROTECTED SPEECH. That allows you to have nasty opinions about things.

Good ethics would require you back up hasty generalizations with support, reasons for why you think the film sucks, for instance.

PARODY is generally considered Fair Comment and Criticism. I do believe that usually includes filksongs (bastardized song lyrics) and Fark.com-style "photoshopping" joke sites.

But with the heated nature of online discourse, where folks get sloppy is when they're busy flaming someone who maybe isn't wearing asbestos underwear, and instead of criticism, they start playing the "dozens," or an online variant, essentially saying bad things about someone's mother or parentage, or other exaggerations that are made up completely of whole cloth.

I dunno. Don Rickles gets away with that style of insult, but if it is something that can be fact-checked, it had better be true. If Don Rickles says out loud that someone's mother wears army boots, it is aural and generally considered slander. Libel is a bigger deal, because it has more permanence, and if etched forever on the ethers, Google-searchable, that could add up to a sizable settlement.

So an exaggerated insult COULD be construed as taking from a person her or his good name or reputation, and if it ain't true, that's libel.

For those of you for whom this is pretty basic stuff, or old news, please forgive me for going over old ground. I just figure it's better safe than sorry.

Chris

Link: Courts are asked to crack down on bloggers *

Link: USATODAY.com - Courts are asked to crack down on bloggers, websites.

Link: AsiaMedia :: US: Blogs hit by libel suits.

US: Blogs hit by libel suits

People criticised in online journals fight back, experts fear the impact on free speech

Singapore Straits Times
Thursday, October 5, 2006

New York --- Mr Rafe Banks, a lawyer in Georgia, took his ex-client David Milum to court when the latter wrote on his blog that Mr Banks had bribed judges on behalf of drug dealers.

Last January, Mr Milum became the first blogger to lose a libel case in the United States and was ordered to pay US$50,000 (S$79,000) in damages to Mr Banks.

The case is just an example of how blogs are increasingly being targeted by those who feel harmed by attacks on the online journals.

In the past two years, more than 50 lawsuits stemming from postings on blogs and website message boards have been filed in the US, reported USA Today.

The suits have sparked a debate over how the "blogosphere" and its impact on speech and publishing might change libel law.

Legal experts say the lawsuits are challenging a mindset that has long surrounded blogging -- that most bloggers are "judgment-proof" because they are often ordinary citizens who do not have money.

This is unlike traditional media such as newspapers, magazines and television stations.

But the lawsuits by Mr Banks and others were undertaken not with the sole purpose of claiming damages, but also to silence their critics.

"Bloggers did not think they could be subject to libel," said Mr Eric Robinson, a Media Law Resource Centre attorney. "You take what is on your mind, type it and post it."

Mr Robert Cox, founder and president of the Media Bloggers Association, which has 1,000 members, told USA Today the recent wave of lawsuits means that bloggers should learn libel law.

"It has not happened yet, but soon, there will be a blogger who is successfully sued and who loses his home," he said.

[...]

How NOT to get lots of comments on your blog...

Yeow! When some friends first told me about this today, I really wasn't sure what a "sock puppet" was, and to tell you the truth, the guess I had in my imagination was a tad more off-color. I was glad to be proven wrong on that assumption!

So another professional journalist gets his poor ethics exposed, care of blogs and the blogosphere. I just have to point that out, because usually it is professional journalists ranting about the lack of ethical reporting standards in the blogosphere.

Link: New Republic Suspends an Editor for Attacks on Blog - New York Times.

September 4, 2006

New Republic Suspends an Editor for Attacks on Blog

By MARIA ASPAN

A senior editor at The New Republic was suspended and his blog was shut down on Friday after revelations that he was involved in anonymously attacking readers who criticized his posts.

Lee Siegel, creator of the Lee Siegel on Culture blog for tnr.com, was suspended indefinitely from the magazine after a reader accused him of using a “sock puppet,” or Internet alias, to attack his critics in the comments section of his blog. An editor’s apology replaced the blog on the Web site, announcing that the blog would no longer be published and noting that The New Republic deeply regretted “misleading” its readers.

Franklin Foer, the New Republic’s editor, said in an interview that he first became aware of the accusations against Mr. Siegel on Thursday afternoon, after a colleague noticed a comment in the Talkback section of Mr. Siegel’s blog that accused him of using the alias “sprezzatura” to defend his articles and assail his critics.

["sprezzatura" is a literary term, for art that seems effortless or comes easily]

[...]

In a statement by e-mail, Mr. Siegel said, “I’m sorry about my prank, which was certainly not designed to harm a magazine that has been my happy intellectual home for many years.”

[...]

Mr. Siegel became a polarizing figure, coining the term “blogofascism” in the midst of a debate over The New Republic’s support of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman in the Connecticut primary.

The user named sprezzatura, an Italian term for studied carelessness, posted comments that were hyperbolic even in the blogging environment. After readers criticized Mr. Siegel for his post about the host of “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart, sprezzatura wrote: “Siegel is brave, brilliant and wittier than Stewart will ever be. Take that, you bunch of immature, abusive sheep.” (A later comment deplored other readers’ “inability to withstand a difference in taste without resorting to personal insult.”)

Mr. Siegel is not the first mainstream blogger to use an Internet alias or the first to be unmasked. In April, The Los Angeles Times suspended the blog of a reporter, Michael A. Hiltzik, after he admitted using aliases on his own blog and other Web sites. Mr. Foer said that as print publications engage the Internet, it can be difficult to clearly define and apply journalistic principles. “Obviously, this all happened in a newer medium where the rules are more ambiguous,” he said. “But we simply don’t tolerate the misleading of our readers.”

How seriously do you take citizen journalism?

Blogger Jailed After Defying Court Orders

By JESSE McKINLEY
New York Times
Published: August 2, 2006

A freelance journalist and blogger was jailed on Tuesday after refusing to turn over video he took at an anticapitalist protest here last summer and after refusing to testify before a grand jury looking into accusations that crimes were committed at the protest.

The freelancer, Josh Wolf, 24, was taken into custody just before noon after a hearing in front of Judge William Alsup of Federal District Court. Found in contempt, Mr. Wolf was later moved to a federal prison in Dublin, Calif., and could be imprisoned until next summer, when the grand jury term expires, said his lawyer, Jose Luis Fuentes.

Earlier this year, federal prosecutors subpoenaed Mr. Wolf to testify before a grand jury and turn over video from the demonstration, held in the Mission District on July 8, 2005. The protest, tied to a Group of 8 meeting of world economic leaders in Scotland, ended in a clash between demonstrators and the San Francisco police, with one officer sustaining a fractured skull.

A smoke bomb or a firework was also put under a police car, and investigators are looking into whether arson was attempted on a government-financed vehicle.

Mr. Wolf, who posted some of the edited video on his Web site, www.joshwolf.net, and sold some of it to local television stations, met with investigators, who wanted to see the raw video. But Mr. Wolf refused to hand over the tapes, arguing that he had the right as a journalist to shield his sources.

On Tuesday, Judge Alsup disagreed, ruling that the grand jury “has a legitimate need” to see what Mr. Wolf filmed.

READ: NYTimes: Blogger Jailed After Defying Court Orders

Lucasfilm "gets" the new media (obviously)

Lucasfilm has been informed that YouTube recently removed from its site several fan-made Star Wars spoofs and parodies. We would like the fan film community to know that this was not done at our request.

Apparently the action was taken by YouTube as a result of a misunderstanding of a request to remove an item containing material taken from starwars.com without our permission. We have asked YouTube to restore any works that they inadvertently removed.

 

SOURCE: YouTube and fan-made Star Wars videos

Woman fired for blogging (Keep an eye on this one)

A 33-year-old British secretary has launched a test case before a French employment tribunal after bring sacked from her company for writing a blog about her day-to-day life in Paris.

The blog - written under the pseudonym "La Petite Anglaise" - has built up a sizeable international following over the last two years, with up to 3000 people a day reading diary-style accounts about work, relationships and the travails of single-motherhood.

But in April Catherine - she refuses to give her family name - was called in by superiors at the Paris office of British accounting firm Dixon Wilson and told she was being dismissed for gross misconduct.

After working out her notice, Catherine today posted news of her dismissal and impending legal case for the first time on her blog - http://www.petiteanglaise.com - prompting a flood of sympathetic comments from readers.

"In the dismissal letter they told me I had brought the company into disrepute, but I never once referred to it or the people there by name," Catherine told AFP.

Managers had also discovered from reading the blog that on two occasions she had lied about having nanny problems to take the afternoon off, Catherine said. And they objected to her using the computer in office hours to write the blog.

"I can understand why they might have felt a little aggrieved, but I cannot accept that it is a sackable offence. It was a gross over-reaction. Only a few days before I'd been told how good my work was," she said.

The case - one of the first of its kind in France - will be brought before the "prud'hommes" or labour tribunals later this year, and Catherine's lawyer is pressing for an award of two years' salary.

READ: Secretary sacked for blogging