Omln-law-ethics

SESSION THREE: The Future of Journalism: Law and Ethics in a Changing Media Ecosystem

These pages are notes taken by Bill Densmore of the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute while attending and participating April 9, 2010, in a one-day seminar at Harvard Law School: "Journalism's Digital Transition: Unique Legal Challenges and Opportunities." The event was organized by the Online Media Legal Network of the Berkshire Center for Internet & Society at Harvard. There are three panels; we'll build a page on each. THE CONFERENCE AGENDA HAS DETAILS ON PARTICIPANTS AND OVERVIEW TOPICS.

• BACK TO TOP OF THESE NOTES
• The hash tag for today's seminar on Twitter is: #jdt

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Phil Malone, a Harvard Law clinical professor, is moderating this panel.

Panelists

• Jon Hart, Dow Lohnes PLLC, general counsel to the Online News Association
• Dan Kennedy, assistant professor, Northeastern University School of Journalism, WGBH commentatory
• Josh Stearns, program manager, Freepress.net and SavetheNews.org
• Lucy Dalglish, executive director, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
• Rob Bertsche, Prince Lobel Glovsky & Type, LLP and counsel to New England Newspaper & Press Assn.
• Cameron Stracher, co-director, Program in Law and Journalism, New York University

Discussion

Malone ask each of the panels to provide their summary of the issues.

• Jon Hart: He congratulates Berkman and David Ardia on putting together the Online Media Legal Network. His career has focused on people trying to figure out how to make money doing journalism. He thinks there will be a mix of profit and non-profit going forward.

• Dan Kennedy: He thinks non-profit will be an increasingly important part of the mix. He cites the "small, cheap, fast, foundation-supported journalism" of the New Haven Independent as compelling.

Kennedy: He thinks one problem to discuss is the prohibition against non-profits making political endorsements. "It's a matter of free speech, Congress shall make no law -- what part of no law do you not understand." It was in 1954, when Lyndon Johnson was running in a race in which right-wingers were using McCarthy-like tactics to defeat Johnson. Johnson pushed through a law that prohibited non-profits from working for or against political candidates.

Paul Starr suggested making an exemption for news organizations. "But I'm going to suggest something a little bit more sweeping, and that is that we should just undo the blanket prohibition." He thinks we should remove this restriction from everyone, just just journalists.

• Josh Stearns: He's delighted that people are now talking about the role of public policy and journalism. He's interested in news sharing and credentialing. He cites a non-traditional news organization that has just been pushed out of the state capitol in Minnesota. He's interested in non-traditional ownership models and PEG access.

• Lucy Dalglish: She says no reporter who was in legal trouble has ever had to pay to get legal help from RCFP. She has some major concerns -- "Virtually all of the issues we are dealing with today have to do with money . . . these days, nobody is making enough money."

What does that mean, she asks? Most court cases to advance news gathering were brought by a news organization. "Nobody is going to be out there to fight for this . . . . "

As to access: "Those people in control of those records, those courtrooms, they know you don't have the money to fight them, so they are acting with impunity." In New York, courts are arguing that because there is personal information in court records, "We're just not going to make them public anymore." Her warning is that we have to deal with the consequences of technology. Reporters are gleeful about what the internet can do; Dalglish says the officials are aghast.

She is skeptical about non-profits because she doesn't see how they are sustainable. "Nobody else wants to come in and sustain a program that has somebody else's name printed on it."

• Rob Bertsch. He thinks "the model of the objective news source is dying a quick death . . . we have an incredible mess out there . . . and frankly I think it is more like it was at the birth of the First Amendment than we have ever had. That's pretty interesting to me, I think it's a fruitful time . . . all I want to do is put on my seatbelt and ride with it."

He thinks local news coming from newspapers "is actually going to hit a renaissance. I think it is going to be more important than ever . . . we are going to find that is where the real action is in developing journalistic quality."

A couple of observations by Bertsch: Increasingly we have to realize the First Amendment is a "local ordinance" in a world sense. "I don't know where that ends up but I think it's something we all have to pay attention to." Thinks like libel law in England or Indonesia.

He worries about an increasing concern for politeness. Judges are saying "that's not nice, that's not a good thing to do. Some of those things may be true, but I don't think that's the law."

At a recent meeting, he was concerned that police chiefs wanted to talk about the damn comments and the terrible things were saying about them in comment sections.

• Cameron Stracher. He says he's concern that new media is undermining the protections of old media. "In trying to get protections for all we lose some of the protections that we have come to take for granted . . . when you push the limits we realize the freedoms we had are not as broad as we thought they were."

For example, in passing a federal shield law, does that mean every blogger gets rights of evidentiary privilege that they didn't have before. "That may lead to the demise of the federal shield law (idea)."

FCC policy and the future of journalism

Josh Stearns overviews multiple initiatives in DC having to do with the future of media. I'll provide a link to his summary here later.

The problem: Funding the business of journalism: Role for government?

Malone asks if there is a role for governmetn in funding journalism?

John Hart says Michael Zimbalist, who started the Online News Association, says newspapers lost $1.2 billion in classified revenue, but Craigslist only monetizes $60 million of that.

Stearns says that David Westphal of USC did some research and said government subsidizes the government to the tune of about $2 billion a year in postal subsidies, legal notices and other things.

Dalglish says legal notices are a huge subsidy for small papers. "Some of those newspapers -- just gone," if those legal notices go away.