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Court Victory Gives Blogger Same Speech Protections As Traditional Press
cold fjord writes "Reuters reports, 'A blogger is entitled to the same free speech protections as a traditional journalist and cannot be liable for defamation unless she acted negligently, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday. Crystal Cox lost a defamation trial in 2011 over a blog post she wrote accusing a bankruptcy trustee and Obsidian Finance Group of tax fraud. A lower court judge had found that Obsidian did not have to prove that Cox acted negligently because Cox failed to submit evidence of her status as a journalist. But in the ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said Cox deserved a new trial, regardless of the fact that she is not a traditional reporter. "As the Supreme Court has accurately warned, a First Amendment distinction between the institutional press and other speakers is unworkable."... Eugene Volokh, [a] Law professor who represented Cox, said Obsidian would now have to show that Cox had actual knowledge that her post was false when she published it. ... "In this day and age, with so much important stuff produced by people who are not professionals, it's harder than ever to decide who is a member of the institutional press."' Further details are available at Courthouse News Service."
A great victory for the blogosphere
Better luck pissing on inalienable rights next time. Why not try banning the second amendment again. That'll make you feel better.
I think you mean "restores"? After they tried to take it away?
so their speech is far from free but usually in the 'ordinary citizen' range
" it's harder than ever to decide who is a member of the institutional press."
Everyone is a member of the institutional press.
Simple.
And so a blogger could make accusations(false ones, in particular), with few consequences. A traditional journalist would be less likely to make false accusations in their line of work, because they could lose their job, and their employer could be taken to court.
There is a difference between a personal blog, and an official publication. Does a blogger follow the same code of conduct/ethics that a traditional journalist must follow? No. Apples and oranges. So for a blogger to be entitled to the same free speech protection as a traditional journalist is wrong.
I find it hard to believe that there is a judge in the USA who has the common sense to actually let this happen.
What about EULA's and copyright issues?
As one that ban bad press about X item / person / corporation?
Press pass, please.
Old school ideas - professionals are more privileged.
Obsidian Finance Group has never had to prove to anyone, even the IRS, that they did not, in fact, commit tax fraud.
A professional is one who gets paid for his work. Put AdSense on your blog and you're a professional.
Pie in the sky is the most expensive kind. Journalists don't follow a code of ethics or conduct, and even if they did there is no reason that they should somehow be granted greater First Amendment protection than the common man. Nothing you said is relevant because the Constitution requires equal protection under the law for everyone. Singling out journalists as having the right to protect their sources is equal to differentiating "everyone else" as not having that right. Freedom of speech includes freedom FROM speaking, and the Fifth Amendment reinforces that in any potentially self-incriminating interaction (which, in case you don't realize, is every interaction that exists due to overcriminalization in the United States.)
But you see, a blogger doesn't have a 'job' to lose(meaning, blogging is not their occupation)
It is if the blogger has ads on his site.
A journalist would be more professional - if they make an accusation, they'd have their research to back it up.
So does someone become a "journalist" merely by properly citing sources? If so, the biggest difference between a journalist and a Wikipedia editor is that unlike a Wikipedia editor, a journalist is allowed to make an original synthesis of information from published sources.
The journalist would(by and large) have to follow a code of conduct/ethics, whereas a personal blogger is unregulated.
By whom is a journalist regulated?
The situations are not the same, so how can the law apply equally for both cases?
Because the law allows for a blogger who cites his sources and who makes and follows a reasonable code of ethics.
There have been numerous accounts of secondary school students censored or reprimanded as well as public university students who have felt the heavy hand of administration for having their say online.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The horror!
"In this day and age, with so much important stuff produced by people who are not professionals, it's harder than ever to decide who is a member of the institutional press."
It's easy to distinguish those who are members of the institutional press; they never ask challenging questions of the wealthy and powerful, reliably support one of the overly simplistic two-party positions on all wedge issues, and don't publish stories like the Snowden trove until the non-traditional press has left them no other choice. These are the very reasons that the non-traditional press needs as much or more protection than the mundane, risk-averse mainstream media.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
whosonever cannot feel the stirrings of (r)evolution please raise your mouse? both of you just keep reading thanks for being candid.
TFA makes it sound more like the blogger is a habitual extortion artist. The firm that was accused of tax fraud should have gone specifically for defamation and attacked the character of her journalism. It sounds like their lawyers might have been able to bring forth a number of other people who were defamed and paid her off to make the stories go away. Instead they hinged their case too much on the "not a professional, and thus not entitled" argument.
isn't saying much these days.
People in the free press are meeting with "accidents" and the "misfortune" if your article covers bankers, their cronies mischief in the NSA.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
that's going to hurt? 12hundredth most visited site in the wwworld. congratulatons rob they did it without you (just kidding). never a better time to consider ourselves in relation to momkind instead of some fictional characters from books
Mean, mean pride .still. . .cried"
Punched real hard and he. .
Duh-DUH Duh-DUH
(Thanks, I'm here all week.)
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Freedom of the Press... Freedom of Conscience... In Tony Blair's New World, you will note that the sheeple are encouraged to think THEY understand the fundamentals of such concepts, so their fundamental MISUNDERSTANDING can be used as a pseudo-democratic process gradually removing such Rights from us all.
Take Freedom of Conscience. Come Census Day in the USA or UK, the owners of Slashdot ALWAYS promote stories that inherently imply that you have no Freedom of Conscience, and 90%+ of the comments on such stories FAIL to recognise that in English speaking nations of the West, the hard won freedom of Conscience means that our governments CANNOT define valid religions, nor force us to answer questions about our current spiritual positions.
Freedom of the Press is just the same type of issue. In the USA, the Constitution PREVENTS the government from defining who is and who is not a 'journalist'. When this filthy lower court judge illegally ruled against the blogger, it did so NOT in pursuit of US Law, but in pursuit of how current monsters would have such Laws if they had their wish. Filth in lower courts do this all the time. In the Southern States, such abuse is regularly used to tilt justice away from the poor or 'black' people.
Again, for the hard of thinking, there is ZERO uncertainty about the concept that EVERY American, regardless of current status, is entitled to undertake so-called journalistic activity, with equal protection under Law. The same is currently true in the UK, but Tony Blair's people are moving heaven and Earth to change this situation. Blair's trick is to state to the English sheeple that REAL journalists must be massively insured, in case they write something 'offensive' that requires an enormous payout to the 'victim'. However, Blair's plans have been held-back because the major British newspapers have so far refused to join Blair's 'official' State-recognised newspaper publisher body. Blair intends to make such registration a legal requirement when the Labour party replaces the Coalition after the next election.
Already in Britain, bloggers go to prison for forms of editorial comment that British newspapers indulge in all the time. Blair's 'terrorist' Laws make the expression of almost any form of anti-war (or pro-resistance) opinion illegal.
America is somewhat better in this regard, but attacks against Freedom of Speech have exploded since 9/11. Americans are regularly imprisoned for long periods, for instance, simply for providing access to commercial TV stations from the Middle East that Israel and its twin, Saudi Arabia, don't approve of. Obama's definition of 'terrorism', as he has stated over and over, is "anything that offends the zionists of Israel".
The sheeple often wonder why nations like the USA allow their powerful figures to be so mocked, but the elite of the USA understand that being touchy over such forms of commentary is the hallmark of the very worst forms of small-minded, tinpot, insecure, petty dictators. The elite of the USA aspire to be so much more SIGNIFICANT in their dominance of the people of the USA. When the little person has no power, let him have the safety valve of a good rant at his/her 'betters. "Sticks and Stones..." as they say.
Um, Fox corroborates their stories before they air them.
YOU might not like what they say, (and really it boils down to that, doesn't it), and YOU might find their sources suspicious, but
I suspect you had no problem believing CBS.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The Ninth Circuit totally gets it right. Any other ruling would be massively un-American.
If you limit First Amendment rights to professional reporters, then what you are REALLY doing is limiting First Amendment rights to the people who employ those reporters.
It's not a coincidence that anonymously-printed hand bills, distributed, in London, in the 1600s and 1700s, were often referred to as 'libels'; they challenged the status quo and those whom maintained dominance.
Clearly when the Founders sought to protect ownership of printing presses, they also sought to protect libelers, as one man's libel was another man's free speech and a third man's entertainment - they did not see fit to decide for those men, or their peers.
When I was reading a book on the CIA's cocaine smuggling, published by the Christic Institute, I was struck by how they preceded each controversial statement with the phrase, 'based on information and belief'. I have since discovered this is a formulaic legal expression with precedents whereby controversial facts may safely be introduced into the public debate, and I have used it religiously, with good effect.
Of course, this requires that one have some sort of information to base one's belief upon - but that's not a bad thing, we'll all agree.
Furthermore, the term 'journalist' hearkens back to a time when not everyone knew how to read, and fewer still were inclined to write, but, of those whom DID know how to write, they felt - as a sense of responsibility to those whom would come after them, in life - that they had a duty to record their experiences, so that others could learn from them, in books, that were often referred to as 'journals', hence, those whom kept journals were referred to, as 'journalists'.
And so we see there is no inconsistency between owning a press ... publishing one's opinions ... annoying those in power ... exercising one's freedom of speech ... adhering to the law ... and being held responsible for one's statements, when one does not.
The web hasn't changed anything; it's just lowered the cost of ownership, printing costs and distribution costs. That's ALL.
~childo
CAPTCHA: 'tested'
come to my blog friends
http://mgmplampung.blogspot.com
There's a point there, people should have the power to present their opinions without having to have to fear imprisonment, especially if they are true.
They ask someone in the room if they agree then run it. Don't try and tell me fox news does anything to make sure what they deliver is true. No more than any other 24 hour news station. All of them are about getting and keeping viewers with sensationalism and pandering.
Fox news has been caught in several lies and if you pass this over by telling me the next guy does it too then you are missing the entire problem.
YOU might not like what they say, (and really it boils down to that, doesn't it), and YOU might find their sources suspicious, but I suspect you had no problem believing CBS.
Of course, CBS apologized for their crappy reporting and suspended the journalist. I don't think I've ever seen Fox apologize for anything, let alone for their news shows citing their opinion shows as fact.
This victory is important, and handily demonstrates the impartiality of the circuit court judges involved, and Eugene Volkoh's intestinal fortitude. Why? Chrystal Cox is, to be frank, a horrible person. A nutjob. A known extortionist. The trial that will now take place will be a waste of everyone's time and money (she's going to lose), and it's unlikely the plaintiff's will be able to recover they now-extensive legal costs and the damages they are almost certainly due.
Example: She decided to go on a vendetta against Marc Rendazza (who, ironically, is a well-known civil-liberties attorney)... First, she asked Marc Rendazza to pay for her "reputation management services." When he hold her to take a hike, she got revenge by posting all sorts of utterly made-up horrible things about his 3-year-old daughter.
Make no mistake, when this does go to trial, she's going to lose, and she's going to lose hard. All she won here was an acknowledgement that despite being a horrible person, and despite the fact she's being sued for doing the exact same sort of thing she's done in the past, the defamation has to be proven in a court instead being assumed because she isn't a professional.
Now that the 1st-amendment issues have been settled, will Volkoh now drop her like a hot potato?
On one hand, I can see what the court is getting at here, but in terms of practical effect, it could be ugly. As if we needed more reasons to not trust anything we read on the internet.
The next song will be Synchronicity II.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Yup, by all evidence, she is a scheming, (at least attempting) blackmailing bitch. It is great irony that she has inadvertently helped protect freedom of speech (by allowing the EFF to do so.) Strange how the prettiest flowers are sometimes fertilized by piles of shit. Westover Baptist, the KKK, and Rush Limbaugh are all part of the cost of freedom - which ain't cheap...
I guess you've never watched a political speech first and then went to fox to see what they do to it. Quite often going off in a tangent about something that was never even in the speech. If you want to head to fox first, fine. But do yourself a favor and then go to youtube and watch it "uncensored". They're usually posted there a while later.
Remember, fux is NOT an American company. The owner (Rupert Murdoch) is out for the money. Sensationalism is how he sells news world wide.
But the main problem with all media today... they all have an opinion. Years ago if a journalist had an opinion on air... he'd get fired. Today, if it creates controversy, he gets a raise.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
Love him, hate him; Rush Limbaugh only provides personal commentary (monologue) based on factual news.
And this case upholds your right to say such things about her without positively demonstrating them to be correct.
I am not an american. I don't watch ANY of your 24 hr news feeds for my news. They are all corporate driven media and biased in their own way.
Try watching BBC or some other respected non-US news source once in a while to see what else is out there - you may be very surprised.
And taking your smear to the full extent I feel compelled to say I also don't like either of your 2 political parties either - I think they are both complete shit and find your whole political system a complete farce and a bad joke as do most americans it appears. (and believe me I wish I could afford not to give a toss about it but you keep spying on and invading on other countries!)
Again, try investigating another well respected democracy etc...
Not that any of them (countries or news orgs) are perfect but none of them are as blatantly biased as Fox news. And that has been PROVEN with leaked memos and other analysis much of which has been mentioned on this very site.
So you might really love what Fox news has to say (and really it boils down to that, doesn't it) and YOU might find their sources beyond suspicion but I suspect you had no problem believing Bush and Cheney[Evil tyrants.com].
First, off, I don't head to Fox first, or even CNN, and certainly not NBC. I'm generally aware of most stories before they even break on the national news. I watch the BBC, CBC, I surf newspapers from all over the world, even Al Jazeera, Pravda, etc.
However, every time one of my (way ot liberal) friends starts the liberal Fox New Lies rant, I invite them over to watch the nightly news.
We each start with 10 bucks on the coffee table.
Every time they call something a lie, they have to prove it with an un-impeachable source right then and there using the internet.
If they can, they get the money. If they can't, I get it.
They've lost so much that they refuse the wager. I probably lost once or twice, only to have Fox correct themselves in the next hour.
So here's the assignment for every Fox Hater: Post back to this thread with a current news event (today) where Fox told a lie, and cite an un-impeachable source that proves it a lie. Today, not 6 months from now. Prove it. You lose if any of the other big networks also make the same statements. You lose if Fox states that they can't yet corroborate the facts, but are just stating what are un-confirmed reports from people at the scene.
I think most haters are still going to hate, because Fox does not feed them what they want to hear, but they aren't' going to find any lies.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Not that any of them (countries or news orgs) are perfect but none of them are as blatantly biased as Fox news.
Well a I have to assume you are speaking from total ignorance here. Why? Because you said so yourself:
I don't watch ANY of your 24 hr news feeds for my news.
I can get the BBC here, as well as the CBC, Al Jazeera, and I am internet close to anything else.
If you think Fox is biased, you clearly haven't seen MSNBC. Oh! My! God!
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Like I said "that I could think of".
I am sure there are much more shitty news orgs out there. Probably none of them with the viewership of Fox news....
And I am not speaking from ignorance. I used to flick back and forth between Fox and BBC when they were on after midnight to compare.
The difference was mindblowing....
The First Amendment isn't there to protect speech you like; it's there to protect speech you detest. Remember Larry Flynt's statement:
"If the First Amendment will protect a scumbag like me, then it will protect all of you. Because I'm the worst."