Bloggers

A federal judge denied a motion for retrial in the case of a self-described investigative blogger, ruling that private figure plaintiffs do not have to establish “negligence” or “actual malice” to hold a non-media defendant liable in a defamation suit arising out of speech not on a matter of public concern.

A Montana blogger has been ordered to pay $2.5 million in defamation damages after a federal judge said she would have to be working for a mainstream media organization in order to qualify for protections afforded journalists.

The judgment against Crystal Cox, a self-proclaimed investigative blogger, arose from an allegedly defamatory statement about Obsidian Finance Group, LLC, and its senior principal, Kevin D. Padrick. The statement was posted on Cox's website bankruptcycorruption.com.

A Minneapolis blogger will continue his fight to overturn a jury's verdict that he should pay $60,000 to a former university employee whom he wrote about scathingly --- but truthfully --- in a blog post that led to the employee's termination the next day.

An Oregon blogger’s disparaging “almost stream of consciousness-like” statements about the trustee in a bankruptcy case are protected opinion under the First Amendment, a federal judge in Portland recently ruled.

The opinion in Obsidian Finance Group v. Cox highlights the importance of courts’ consideration of the “looser, more relaxed communication style” of the Internet in their evaluations of allegedly defamatory online communications.

A Baltimore city councilwoman withdrew her libel suit against a local blogger on Monday after she said it became clear she could not win.

A New Jersey Supreme Court decision announced Tuesday should make it easier for individuals associated with online publications and traditional media to invoke the protections of the state’s shield law.

A Dallas judge found earlier this week that a plaintiff who tried to silence a blogger through a temporary injunction in a defamation suit did not meet the burden for the injunction.

A blogger’s request to overturn a jury verdict ordering him to pay $60,000 in damages for truthful comments that got an ex-community leader fired has attracted media support. The Minnesota Pro Chapter of Society of Professional Journalists has filed a brief arguing that the judgment should not stand.

Chicago journalists will no longer be fingerprinted to receive police-issued press passes after the City Council last week amended its credentialing ordinance to reflect reporters’ privacy rights and modern changes in the news industry.

California county officials last week withdrew a search warrant that was executed months earlier when government-authorized agents from a technology crime task force searched the home of an online news editor and seized computers and servers related to his coverage of an Apple iPhone prototype.