North Carolina's newspapers have pretty good legal protection.
Thanks to the efforts of the N.C. Press Association, our inestimable attorneys and the willingness of a few big papers and TV stations to bankroll legal fights, our state has few bad precedents in state courts for the kinds of judgements that make journalism difficult.
Blogging could change all that. As the saying goes, everyone's a journalist now, but not everyone has the same financial and institutional backing as a daily newspaper reporter.
That could hurt bloggers who get sued, but it could also hurt everyone else who wants to be a journalist (including Dome). A single poorly fought lawsuit can result in a judgement that is wielded against everyone else and eventually becomes precedent.
What should bloggers do about this? Dome recommends they get familiar with this information, which provides some instruction on the state's case law. But more could be done.
Dome has two suggestions: Creating a North Carolina media law wiki site to answer libel questions in plain English and starting a N.C. Bloggers Association parallel to the press association. A third idea — adding bloggers to the press association — might be a tougher sell.
Add your two-cents here or on your own blog and send us a link.
Comments
Some resources via one of our bloggers
June 7, 2008 - 7:53am — James_ProtzmanFour good links.
Re: N.C. bloggers and state press law
June 6, 2008 - 9:31pm — scharrisonThis sounds like a great topic for a seminar at ConvergeSouth this year. I wonder if anyone at EGHS would be interested in speaking there?
Re: N.C. bloggers and state press law
June 6, 2008 - 4:18pm — rossreportThis seems like another FOB (fear of bloggers) moment.
Please note that 'bad' lawsuits can and have come from the establishment press as well.
Of course the NCPA should offer help, advice and a web-based primer on the law here. Sooner than better would be nice.
I'm waiting for a comments suit that would mess with the ISP/Compuserve shield. That would be nuklear.
Re: N.C. bloggers and state press law
June 6, 2008 - 3:02pm — ryanteaguebeckwith (author)Actually, no. The purpose of the group would not be to share risk, but to give advice on avoiding it and dealing with (often empty) threats. The N.C. Press Association does not get sued when the N&O writes something, for example.
Again, I'm not saying that a group is needed. I'm just raising the question.
— RTB
Re: N.C. bloggers and state press law
June 6, 2008 - 2:00pm — scharrison"...not everyone has the same financial and institutional backing as a daily newspaper reporter."
This may be naive, but isn't this relative? What I mean is: wouldn't increasing the status of bloggers by forming an association make them a more enticing target for civil litigation, as there would be a larger (and more lucrative) "entity" that could be found liable?
Re: N.C. bloggers and state press law
June 6, 2008 - 12:42pm — ryanteaguebeckwith (author)Fair enough. I would hope the First Amendment would prohibit any attempts at regulating speech like that.
— RTB
Re: N.C. bloggers and state press law
June 6, 2008 - 12:39pm — ThunderPigSure, I seem to remember that once upon a time, Social Security was voluntary, and promised to never rise above 1% of income either. I prefer to nip stuff like this in the bud.
Re: N.C. bloggers and state press law
June 6, 2008 - 12:06pm — ryanteaguebeckwith (author)Thanks for responding. I think you misread me. As with the NCPA, the only point would be to offer help to people getting sued, not to enforce any kind of so-called "standards" on bloggers.
— RTB
Re: N.C. bloggers and state press law
June 6, 2008 - 11:50am — ThunderPigNo.
If newspapers would report the news, we would be little more than curiosities (I think our influence is highly over-rated). Very few people even read blogs except bloggers, but you guys try to push something like this through; EVERYONE will be reading blogs.
This is as laughable as expecting us (me especially) to follow a style book.