MLRC 2018 Annual Meeting
New Chairperson Elected; A Review of MLRC Projects and Events The Annual Meeting of the Media Law Resource Center, Inc. was held on November 7, 2018, at the Grand Hyatt in New York. Chair of the Board of Directors, Lynn Oberlander, called the meeting to order. Elections of Directors The membership elected two new Directors…
10 Questions to a Media Lawyer: Lynn Carrillo
Lynn Carrillo is Vice President, Legal, at NBCUniversal News Group in Miami, Florida. 1. How’d you get into media law? What was your first job? My first job in media was in high school working for the Miami Herald compiling listings of local events. I was lucky enough to be assigned to the Miami Beach…
Eleventh Circuit Holds That Annotations of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated Are Not Copyrightable
By Ryan K. Walsh, Mary Alexander Myers and Rebecca M. Nocharli On October 19, 2018, the Eleventh Circuit issued a decision in Code Revision Commission v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., overturning a Northern District of Georgia ruling and holding that the annotations contained in the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (“OCGA”) are not copyrightable. No. 17-11589, 2018…
Federal Court Orders Release of Internal Investigation Report Concerning Anchorage Police Department
By John McKay A federal judge presiding over an Alaska employment suit filed by a former Anchorage Police Department lieutenant granted a motion by Anchorage Daily News and KTUU-TV for access to an internal investigation report that led to the firing of the lieutenant and secret suspension of the former Anchorage police chief. Henry v….
Judge Grants Partial Access to Jury Selection in El Chapo Trial
By Al-Amyn Sumar In a decision rendered in late October, the district judge presiding over the trial of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in the Eastern District of New York granted the press partial access to voir dire proceedings. U.S. v. Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera (E.D.N.Y. Oct. 30, 2019). The judge had previously indicated he would…
MLRC Forum Brings Together Pulitzer Winners Jodi Kantor and Ronan Farrow
Panel Tackles Journalistic, Editorial and Legal Challenges of Breaking Harvey Weinstein Scandal This year’s MLRC Forum, which took place immediately before the annual dinner on November 7, brought an all-star panel together to provide an insider’s look at the reporting that led to the downfall of one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood. The…
(Don’t) Think Before You Retweet?
By Ed Klaris & Alexia Bedat Every second, on average, 6,000 tweets are published on Twitter – that’s 500 million tweets per day. Of these millions of tweeters, how many are considering defamation law when they retweet? Probably not many. And yet, one click of a button could land you into legal trouble. In some…
Gray Television Wins Privacy Victory in Mississippi
By Jacquelyn Schell A recent Mississippi decision provides clarity on the limits of Mississippi’s youth court confidentiality statutes and helpfully applied First Amendment protections for reporting on matters of public concern. Doe v. Cmty. Newspaper Holding, Inc., No. 18-CV-038(C), 2018 BL 425671, 2018 Media L. Rep. 429 (Miss. Cir. Nov. 06, 2018). Juvenile Sues for…
Trump Uses First Amendment to Avoid Liability in Defamation Action
By Lee Brenner and Sarah Diamond On October 15, 2018, U.S. District Judge James S. Otero of the Central District of California issued an order dismissing the defamation case brought by adult film star Stephanie Clifford, a.k.a. Stormy Daniels (“Daniels”). The case concerns President Trump’s tweet about the allegedly anonymous man who threatened Ms. Daniels…
Robust Decision from the Southern District of Ohio Rejects Academic’s Libel Claims Against The New York Times
By Dana R. Green In November, a district court in the Southern District of Ohio delivered a significant victory to The New York Times in a libel claim brought by a prominent cancer researcher. Croce v. New York Times Company, No. 2:17-cv-402, 2018 WL 5808786 (S.D. Ohio Nov. 6, 2018). The court’s nuanced and thoughtful…
Indiana Court Issues Decision in Daniels v. FanDuel with Implications for Right of Publicity Law and Online Sports Betting
By Kenneth L. Doroshow, Andrew J. Thomas, and Andrew G. Sullivan On October 24, in Daniels v. FanDuel, Inc., the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that uses of college athletes’ names, likenesses, and statistical data in online fantasy sports contests are of “newsworthy value” under Indiana’s right of publicity statute. The court’s unanimous decision halts plaintiffs’…
Tennessee Supreme Court Has Two Chances to Reshape Fair Report Privilege in the Volunteer State
Fair Report Privilege in Flux By Paul R. McAdoo For more than sixty-years the Tennessee Supreme Court has been silent regarding the fair report privilege, allowing the state’s Court of the Appeals to develop the contours of this vital affirmative defense. This year, the Tennessee Supreme Court took up the issue in Funk v. Scripps…
O.J. and Harvey: A Buffalo Connection
By Mickey H. Osterreicher For those of us in Western New York in the news business, there was always a Buffalo connection to most major news stories. In 1981 after the aborted U.S. hostage rescue attempt in Iran, Buffalo freelance writer Cynthia Dwyer endured nine months in an Iranian jail after being found guilty of…
From the Executive Director’s Desk: MLRC Annual Dinner on ‘68 and Forum on #MeToo Reporting Rousing Successes
Also: In-House Group to Meet Regarding Trump, Press Access, and Legal Threats By George Freeman MLRC Annual Dinner week (formerly known as PLI week) has come and gone. It was, at once, busy, productive, interesting and entertaining. As so often seems to happen, it was almost contemporaneous with major legal events: the Kavanaugh hearing took…
MediaLawLetter November 2018
Download Publication MLRC From the Executive Director’s Desk: MLRC Annual Dinner on ‘68 and Forum on #MeToo Reporting Rousing SuccessesAlso: In-House Group to Meet Regarding Trump, Press Access, and Legal Threats O.J. and Harvey: A Buffalo Connection MLRC Forum Brings Together Pulitzer Winners Jodi Kantor And Ronan FarrowPanel Tackles Journalistic, Editorial and Legal Challenges of…