Everything online journalists need to protect their legal rights. This free resource culls from all Reporters Committee resources and includes exclusive content on digital media law issues.
A series of newspaper articles and an editorial about a retired judge’s performance of his duties did not defame the former public official, the Virgin Islands Supreme Court ruled earlier this week.
The opinion by the court, which was established relatively recently in 2004, provides strong precedent for causes of action stemming from First Amendment-protected activities in the U.S. territory.
Newspaper reports about a rumor regarding a local city councilman’s personal relationship with a woman who received a “sweetheart deal” to perform a project for the city were not defamatory, an Alabama appellate court recently held.
A West Virginia daycare owner’s claims against a local television station that reported “serious allegations of abuse and neglect” at the facility, but omitted the fact that the single incident involved child-on-child contact, should have been decided by a jury, a federal appeals court recently held.
An incarcerated felon who placed a personal advertisement on a website is a limited purpose public figure who could not meet the heightened standard of proof of actual malice in his defamation claim against the Boston Herald and a Herald reporter for the paper's series on prisoners and online dating, a Massachusetts appellate court ruled earlier this week in LaChance v. Boston Herald.
