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- Readings
- Pember and Calvert, C.15; Zelezny, C.12; McChesney C.4. Don't forget to bring your three questions.
- Assignment due tonight
- Find a current or recent newspaper article about a current court case that involves one of the major subjects in media regulation that we have already discussed. Examples of these subject matters are listed below, but you can find them in the syllabus and in the table of contents of Pember and Calvert. If you find more than one such article, that's great. Choice is good and you'll be picking one of these cases to investigate further.
- First Amendment Protections
- Prior Restraint
- Libel
- Invasion of Privacy
- Gathering Information
- Freedom of Information
- Government in the Sunshine
- Protection of News Sources
Current cases in media law
The discussion tonight focused almost entirely on the cases you brought in. Here are the class notes. Class members should feel free to correct and expand on their cases as seems appropriate.
Katrina
- FCC vs FOX
- FCC Fined 169 affiliate stations
- Indecency in a scene in "Married by America"
- One station chose not to show it
- issues
- for plaintiff is indecency = "sexually suggestive and explicit"
- for defendants issue is
- what is indecency?
- when can you show indecency?
- size of penalty
- individual fining of stations is an issue
- when a station, in effect, a common carrier
- the FCC also licenses the stations
- how does the v-chip relate
- for the public
- Children's exposure to indecent content
- how effective is 10:00 as a limit
- do kids observe regardless of parents
- with VCRs and Tivos, time is no obstacle
- how effective is the voluntary rating system
- adults access is also an issue
- how easy is it to use a v-chip
Shef
- Hurst vs. Capital Cities
- False light and invasion of privacy
- for the plaintiff
- Reported in some manner relative to a rape case
- Felt the report cast him in a false light
- Felt that there was a reckless disregard
- Fully litigated?
- for the defendent
- information is news
- was it correct as far it was reported
- for the public
- not enough information to know
Shannon
- Multiple plaintiffs concerning Linkletter, a filmmaker
- Civil Suit: Defamation, appropriation, and false light?
- Facts
- Film made in 1993
- Has become a cult classic
- Used last name but not first names
- Is assumed, incorrectly that characters are real people
- The plaintiffs have been harassed
- Film is coming out on DVD
- In New Mexico
- For the plaintiffs
- small community
- continuing harassment, which is getting worse
- Client problems based on assumptions made based on movie
- have lost their privacy
- For the defendent
- Creative freedom
- Sell him property
- For the public
Blake
- Fitzgerald vs. Miller
- Protection of sources
- For the plaintiff
- illegal to reveal name of CIA agent ... but Miller didn't
- Intelligence identities protection act
- Sultzberger thinks that punishing Miller is at issue
- make an example of her
- she made the government look bad in prior stories
- There may secondary motives
- telephone records reveal lots of sources
- if the justice department gets them, the executive branch has them
- For the defendent
- protection of sources
- first amendment press rights - but she didn't write about it
- jail time
- just doing her job in talking to government employees about public issues
- career?
- For the public
- journalists need confidential sources to properly investigate the government
- no one will want to be a confidential source if this works.
- abuse of power
- quality of news reporting
- if the public doesn't have this kind of information, ability to act as an informed public is impeded
Gina
- Mayfield vs. FBI
- Privacy and wrongful identification
- facts
- Wrongly associated with the Madrid bombings
- mistaken fingerprint match
- allegation of bias. Islamic
- leaked to the news media
- concocting false affidavit's
- names Ashcroft and several FBI employees as defendants
- challenging the constitutionality of several provisions of the Patriot Act
- Issues for the plaintiff
- false accusation
- invasion of privacy
- false arrest
- held without advice of counsel
- freedom of religion
- Issues for the defendant
- acknowledged and apologized for error
- should they have leaked
- national security
- they like these provisions
- plaintiff is a lawyer
- Issues for the public
- what about our fourth amendment rights?
- held without right to counsel is a general issue
- leaking of enforcement information
Bellarmine
- Steve Gates vs. Discovery Channel
- Invasion of Privacy
- facts
- Gates served time for his secondary role in a crime
- case featured on Discovery Channel
- Issues for plaintiff
- exposure to larger and different audience long after the fact
- already served time
- has built a new life
- has damaged his reputation
- not newsworthy
- Issues for the dependent
- news is worthy of public interest and concern
- details come from public information, a court report
- Issues for public
- seems like an obvious candidate for summary judgment
- precedent suggests this kind of thing is protected
- but perhaps there are some issues of privacy that remain
Marsha
- Justice Department vs Miller 2 (Murder of Richard Welsh)
- Protection of sources, freedom of press
- Facts
- Welsh information was leaked
- He was murdered
- Did Miller report this?
- Countersource magazine revealed the source and perhaps 1000 others
- Issues for the plaintiff
- Finding the leak
- Endangerment of identities of agents
- see other Miller case
- Issues for the dependent
- Issues for the public
- restriction of what the public can know
- see other Miller case
Commercial Speech
For next week
- Readings
- Pember and Calvert, C.16; Zelezny, C.9; McChesney C.5. Don't forget to bring three questions based on the readings.
- Assignment due next time (and prep for first paper,m due the following week)
- Find ten sources that provide additional detail that relates to this case. The most important sources you need to find are those that provide the facts of the case. There is a lot of detail that we didn't find in the newspaper articles. Other useful sources will include overviews of the cases from watchdog organizations that monitor these kinds of cases, statements about the case that may have been made by the plaintiff and defendant and people associated with them, and relevant precedents. Focus, in particular, on the broader issues associated with the case, especially, if their are any, issues that are or should be issues for the public. For the assignment, cite the ten references in an annotated bibliography using APA format. See http://www.wooster.edu/psychology/apa-crib.html and ManualOfStyle for more detail of APA format. Annotations generally immediately follow references as follows.
- Author, First. (1998). Title of Book. Publisher Information. Annotations concerning book.
- Name, Another. (2003). Article Title. Journal name. Journal information. Annotations concerning article.
- Webauthor, Nameof. (2004). Page Title. Retrieved October 13, 2004 from http://website.com/pagename.htm. Annotations concerning web page.
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Unless otherwise noted, the contents of this page
were written by participants on the Media Space Wiki, operated by Davis Foulger,
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Foulger, D. and other
participants. (August 27, 2008). Regulation Of Media Fall2004 Session06. MediaSpaceWiki. Retrieved on from
http://evolutionarymedia.com/wiki.htm?RegulationOfMediaFall2004Session06.