Sealing and the Medical Profession — Litigation as Fourth Estate?
There are some things we know nothing about until someone sues someone else.
(I’ll forgive you if you’re thinking about marital disputes…)
In the newsgathering context, this is extremely important. Well-heeled interests make a regular practice of hyper-secrecy as a way to preserve competitive advantages. Litigation often provides the only vehicle for reporters to find stories on [...]
Thoughts on Shield Laws and Online Anonymity
As more Doe cases reach appellate review, I have to wonder if it would be possible for a news website to assert reporter’s privilege to protect the identities of online commenters.
Here’s how the argument would run. The commenters are “sources” who provide information to the “reporter” in presumptive reliance on pseudonymity. The reporter “collects” the [...]
YLS CONFERENCE TOMORROW! JOURNALISM AND THE NEW MEDIA ECOLOGY
November 13th and 14th will see a host of media people descend on New Haven to participate in two days of intensive panel discussions about the emerging media ecology. If you’re coming, we’re looking forward to meeting you for what promises to be a thought-provoking weekend.
If you’re unable to make it up to New Haven, [...]
Sneak Peek at Upcoming Conference Panelist: Peter Shane
We’re really excited about the upcoming conference at Yale Law School, Journalism and the New Media Ecology: Who Will Pay the Messengers?
We’re going to start posting selected writings from our conference attendees. Here’s a great piece from Peter Shane, who will be speaking on the Preserving Local News panel, about the critical importance of public [...]
Can Judicial Openness Initiatives Disqualify Judges from Access Cases?
The Supreme Court has refused to indulge a stay sought by the Bridgeport Roman Catholic Diocesan Corporation which would have kept 12,000 pages of court records and depositions in a long-running CT clergy abuse case from public view.
The judgment sought to be stayed, Rosado v. Bridgeport Roman Catholic Diocesan Corp., raises some fascinating access issues, [...]
Tweet-Crime?
We’re starting to see more domestic coverage of l’affaire Elliot Madison, the self-described political anarchist who has been charged with using Twitter to apprise protesters of police movements at the recent G20 Summit
Our own Laura DeNardis weighed in via this Reuters story, highlighting the double standard between Twitter activism in Iran and Pittsburgh.
Is there a [...]
Tweet-Crime?
We’re starting to see more domestic coverage of l’affaire Elliot Madison, the self-described political anarchist who has been charged with using Twitter to apprise protesters of police movements at the recent G20 Summit.
Our own Laura DeNardis weighed in via this Reuters story, highlighting the double standard between Twitter activism in Iran and Pittsburgh.
Is there [...]
Misguided Legal Theories? Come on, AP.
We ought to pay close attention to the unfolding imbroglio over proprietary news content, spearheaded by the AP’s recent initiative to rein in the reproduction of AP-produced content in search engines and the blogosphere.
Though this unfolds chiefly against the backdrop of an industry in crisis, the longstanding implications may be most interesting from an institutional [...]









