Legal challenges facing online journalists
Posted: September 16th, 2010 | Author: Ed Walker | Filed under: Journalism, Training, web | Tags: contempt of court, defamation, media law, online journalism, online media law, social networks | 10 Comments »
Had some media law refresher training this morning. It was tough going back three years and trying to remember specific cases but the best bit of the session were the debates about the challenges now faced by journalism when it comes to online and the law.
The web is moving quickly and with certain acts dating back to to the last century, you won’t find mention of Facebook in the legal statements. First things first, if you’re unsure about media law go and grab a copy of McNae’s Essential Law for Journalists. You won’t regret it.
The three main things we discussed were dealing with breaking news online, and in particular breaking crime news, the use of content from social media sites (particularly images) and commenting on stories by users.
Breaking news online and the dangers
A crime has happened. The Police are on the hunt for two men who have raided the local betting shop. They are armed. You have the basic details and after confirming you’ve got it online. The headline screams out ‘Armed raid at betting shop’ and you’ve got an image of the smashed in door of the betting shop. No arrests have been made. Do you turn the comments on the story? You’ll likely just end up with a load of hearsay that will become obsolete once the Police make arrests but you might also get some extra details, you might stumble upon an eyewitness.
A few hours later and the Police force issued stills of the men they are looking for from the CCTV and give more accurate descriptions. You run these images in full with a big appeal for information from the Police. You create this as a separate article and through your keyword tagging the articles become ‘related’ in your content management system.
You leave the old article in the content management system and overnight the Police name the two men they are looking for and release mugshot images of them. You create a new article and run these images, again this story joins your ‘related stories’ list.
The arrests are made and you’ve still got all the information up on your site. Three articles, all with varying levels of detail and images. Possibly some video of the CCTV and a load of comments from readers. Charges are made and eventually, the trial will start and all this content will be in your archive and might start showing up in the related stories column.
Solution? Have one article and keep that updated. Avoid creating new articles if possible. Keep an eye on pictures/video and remove when no longer relevant. Avoid any compromising photos, just use straight up headshots. Ensure your CMS provides a ‘last updated’ date and timestamp somewhere on the article.
Use of content from social media sites
Facebook and Twitter. A goldmine of information and content, but a legal minefield? There’s not many tests cases out there in terms of using content from social media sites. We had an example of taking a photo from a social networking site of a 17-year-old girl who had died, but the photo showed her drinking alcohol.
Now the dead can’t sue for defamation but the mother would probably not be best pleased to see a smiling photo of her now-dead daughter with a glass of champagne in her hand. Plus, who owns the copyright to the photo?
Solution? We decided we’d run the photo, but probably crop out the alcohol aspect. Or try to find a more suitable photo. In terms of copyright, it’s a tricky one and does seem standard journalist practice now to rip photos from websites despite the copyright resting either with the social network or the user who uploaded the photo.
Commenting on stories
The elephant in the room. Do you post-moderate or pre-moderate? Do you have someone monitoring comments all-hours? Do you let people comment on every story? Do you close comments after a set period of time? Or is it just a free-for-all and it’s the Internet damnit and we can’t control it. Do you let journalists engage in the comments and the debate, or do you tell them to steer clear?
Solution? We couldn’t reach one. But we were sure that media websites benefit massively from having comments on stories – but for court stories the comments should be turned off. We felt more needed to be done to educate people commenting on the idea of ‘fair comment’ and how what they said needed to be based on facts, an honest opinion, without malic and in the public interest. We felt it was important for journalists to be able to respond to comments and engage with the debate as journalism is becoming a two-way process.
Image credit to Eric E Johnson
It was a very interesting morning. The above is just a taster but any of your experiences relating to media law and online journalism would be welcomed in the comments below.
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I have two comments on moderation.
Firstly media organisations should keep a record of all deleted comments. They may become subject to a complaint. The parties involved should be able to obtain snapshots of the comments during the period of dispute.
Secondly if you invite a contributor to write about a sensitve and personal subject you should pre-moderate. The Guardian did not do that with me when I wrote about mental health. I received a lot of personal abuse. The complaint is as yet unresolved.
I do not think that writers with mental health problems should be intimidated out the media by a relatively small number of highly abusive people. When I write I spread understanding amongst my readers. I help very ill people feel at peace themselves and I help the people around them learn to accept difficult illnesses. This is not just an ego trip for me. That being the case the freedom of people with illnesses and disabilities matters more than the freedom of people who lob obnoxious words of abuse. I have not seen a proper study of this but I believe the majority of readers prefer a mature debate.
Great post. The Contempt issues (scenario 1); and commenting (scenario 3) are really grey areas.
I don’t feel basic media law training prepares us for these scenarios, as case law changes so quickly, especially in regards to defamation.
With commenting, for example, the High Court recently ruled that a blogger could avoid liability for completely unmoderated content … (but then, are you risking a danger of Contempt…?) see this Out-Law piece: http://www.out-law.com/page-10902
McNae’s is an essential bit of kit. Many respondents in my recent survey specifically named it as their main resource – one saying ‘McNae’s for frontline advice’. http://meejalaw.com/2010/09/17/online-law-survey-mixed-feelings-about-resources-27-respondents-encountered-legal-trouble-in-last-two-years/
@BeatriceBray – thanks for your comment and raising a very interesting issue. If you think about how it would be published in the paper, then any comments would come in to a readers editor/letter’s page and be edited and then go in the paper. Why should pre-moderation not happen for comments? Be interested to know what your resolution is with them over the issue.
@JTownend – I haven’t read your survey in depth yet, but I think it’s a really valuable piece of work. The contempt area is a big one, especially now news can break so fast and a story can change all the time. One of the issues is that a story that stretches over 2 days for example with many twists and turns, may have various different staff working on it, so internal communication is also key.
[...] Walker, online communities editor at Media Wales, has written about the challenges posed on his media law refresher course. They’re tricky scenarios, tackling copyright, contempt and defamation [...]
I think that a writers ability to comment and join the discussions with his readers is probably the most powerful part about online journalism.
The face that people are able to adamantly defend their own view points and create deeper discussions, sometimes creating new insights–is literally no doubt the best part of the internet. I mean sometimes all you need is the right person to ask the right questions and you’ll all of a sudden find yourself with a lightbulb over your head.
[...] full post here. The comments are also helpful. Tagged with: journalism, media, media law, online journalism [...]
[...] Walker, online communities editor at Media Wales, has written about the challenges posed on his media law refresher course. They’re tricky scenarios, tackling copyright, contempt and defamation [...]