Spreadin’ Love 558

~ Laura

I need to get a chunk of non-blogging writing done, so here's some linky-goodness this morning:

Should bloggers be protected by Shield Laws for journalists? (Yes.)

Map of Joisey. I'm in Christie country. Ugh. 

Why has the rate of autism gone up? The People Talk Theory. 

Hot-artichoke and spinach dip. Yum. 

The evolving role of anchor women and family. 

Best books of 2011. 

A new study finds that teachers don't like creative students. 

Published by Laura

15 thoughts on “Spreadin’ Love 558”

  1. As I read more about the blogger your referred to in your ‘should bloggers be protected by shield laws,’ I have to wonder how individuals and businesses can then protect themselves from bloggers. At least with journalists, there is a system of checks and balances in what they publish. But if bloggers are protected by shield laws how does a business or individual protect themselves from an unscrupulous individual who doesn’t just blog negative things about you, but also sets up websites to support their spurious claims, and links a lot between those websites to drive themselves higher on google search?
    I’m really curious to know what you think about this. Here is where I got my information about Crystal Cox: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/business/media/when-truth-survives-free-speech.html?pagewanted=all

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  2. I don’t know enough about New Jersey to know how accurate the map is, but I will note that “Wife Beathers” doesn’t seem to indicate the spelling was carefully considered.

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  3. Hmm, I wonder how many of those anchor women and other self-righteous female professionals give their nursemaids and housekeepers paid maternity leave.

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  4. “At least with journalists, there is a system of checks and balances in what they publish. But if bloggers are protected by shield laws how does a business or individual protect themselves from an unscrupulous individual who doesn’t just blog negative things about you, but also sets up websites to support their spurious claims, and links a lot between those websites to drive themselves higher on google search?”
    I took a media law course long, long ago, and journalists are at least theoretically subject to libel law if they act recklessly or maliciously. There is no special journalist’s privilege for spreading malicious falsehoods. (If a public figure rather than a private person is concerned, or if there has been a good-faith effort at research, there is quite a bit of grace extended to reporters.)
    See the Times v. Sullivan case:
    “New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964),[1] was a United States Supreme Court case which established the actual malice standard which has to be met before press reports about public officials or public figures can be considered to be defamation and libel[2]; and hence allowed free reporting of the civil rights campaigns in the southern United States. It is one of the key decisions supporting the freedom of the press. The actual malice standard requires that the plaintiff in a defamation or libel case prove that the publisher of the statement in question knew that the statement was false or acted in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity. Because of the extremely high burden of proof on the plaintiff, and the difficulty in proving essentially what is inside a person’s head, such cases—when they involve public figures—rarely prevail.”
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_vs._Sullivan

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  5. “..Christie country. Ugh..”
    I dunno, Corzine is doing his damnedest to make Christie look good, lately, yknowit?

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  7. http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/19/magazines/fortune/pluggedin_corzine.fortune/index.htm
    91 mph, no seat belt. So, before the crash, he was at the least a horse’s ass and not forethoughtful… Forethoughtful is GOOD if you are trying to run a hedge fund, or a state. Forethoughtful is what Christie is trying to sell, in doing long-term projections on what state pensions and borrowing will do to the taxpayer.
    McMegan reported once that he had spoken at her business school and she came away from the day thinking him very unpleasant.

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  8. Quick note: it is very hard to win a libel case against a newspaper in this country, because not only does the injured party have to prove that the story was false and defamatory, but they have prove “harmful intent.” Hard to do. That’s why the gossip tabloids thrive in our country, but not in other countries.
    Sounds like that blogger was clearly working with “harmful intent” though, so a libel case has a chance in courts.
    We have extremely liberal 1st Amendment privileges in this country and I like it that way. Bloggers should have the same privileges as journalists, because in many cases, they are acting as journalists and are breaking stories. They are very much the underdog when writing about politicians or corporations. They don’t have in-house counsels or deep pockets. There is a long standing tradition of bloggers using their blogs to complain about their broken washing machines or their bad phone service. If there are not free to speak their minds without fear of law suits, then there speech is being stifled. I would rather err in favor of the underdog than in favor of deep pocketed corporation.

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  9. I thought that proving “harmful intent” was only required for public figures. That said, I’m sure that in the United States you can’t libel the dead. Therefore, let it be known that Montgomery Public Safety commissioner, L. B. Sullivan, is a vampire and a racist vampire at that.

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  11. I have no idea. Experiment time. In “Tide HE Free & Gentle” laundry detergent, the “HE” stands for “Hitler’s Eva.”

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  12. MH — stop performing libel experiments on Laura’s blog! Get our own blog for that.
    I too like the broad first amendment privileges in our country. I think the concept of restricting them to “journalists” is downright dangerous. What do we do then? License journalists?
    I think all writers (bloggers, journalists, . . . .) should have access to our broad first amendment privileges. There’s still an issue, because bloggers don’t have employers to help protect their rights, but a solution might be legal consortium should be set up to protect the rights of those who don’t have deep pockets (EFF does this, sometimes). Bloggers and others who are doing journalism and need the protection could buy into the consortiums.

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