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We provide you with essential tools to advance First Amendment and media rights, and a supportive community in which to discuss emerging legal issues and the future of communication.
Not a member yet?
We provide you with essential tools to advance First Amendment and media rights, and a supportive community in which to discuss emerging legal issues and the future of communication.
Here are a few personal thoughts on the issue – first, on the need for the continued reliance on the actual malice rule; and, second, dealing with the criticism of the public figure (as opposed to public official) categorization by a return to the Rosenbloom rule.
The Court held that the Southern District of California correctly granted Defendants’ anti-SLAPP motion because Ms. Maddow’s statement that OAN “really literally is paid Russian propaganda”—in the context of her broadcast, in which she employed entertaining and hyperbolic language while commenting on a matter of public concern and fully disclosing the facts—“is well within the bounds of what qualifies as protected speech under the First Amendment.”
The decision covers a number of issues of current interest to the media bar, including the circumstances in which hyperlinking to an earlier, allegedly libelous article is a republication starting a new limitations period, the scope of the “issue of public interest” standard in the recently-enacted amendments of New York Anti-SLAPP statute, and the actionability in the context of newsgathering of torts such as interference with confidentiality agreements and inducement to breach of fiduciary duty.
These decisions – both of which are now on appeal – serve as vindication for the magazine and its author, Kera Bolonik, and mark a key turning point in this long-running and outlandish saga.
Judge Karsznitz — who presided over a two-hour oral argument on the motion to dismiss — was guided by longstanding precedent holding that the First Amendment is implicated whenever a plaintiff takes aim at speech addressing matters of legitimate public concern, no matter how her claims are styled.
Alleging “nothing but love for people who engage in homosexual conduct,” no matter how “vile” and “shameful” their conduct, is not enough to legally ground a defamation and religious discrimination lawsuit filed by a media ministry challenging its public branding as an anti-LGBTQ “hate group.”
SDNY Rakoff, in Nicklen v. Sinclair, effectively followed Breitbart and fulsomely rejected Perfect 10’s “server rule.” And there is more judicial “embed” activity to be expected in the immediate future.
California’s Legislature passed a landmark bill, Senate Bill 1421, to curb police secrecy effective in 2019, but the state’s police agencies and powerful police unions have fought and delayed its implementation virtually every step of the way. Now the Sacramento Bee, in an August 13 ruling, has scored another victory — mirroring earlier victories by…
In a recently filed suit, five visual journalists are suing the NYPD for civil rights violations after each journalist was targeted, beaten, or arrested by NYPD officers while attempting to cover the 2020 George Floyd protests in New York City.
The case involved claims against Twitter arising out of its alleged failure to remove links to third-party sex trafficker pornographic videos upon the request of minors depicted therein.
DNA can contribute powerfully to attribution and authentication of artworks, and thus to historic and market value.
The Sydney lawyer on career moves, big cases, quarantine living, and more.