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 New York judge has dismissed a former congressman’s defamation suit against a person who criticized him anonymously on a newspaper website, The Journal Newsin New York's Lower Hudson Valley reported. The court dismissed the libel claim under an anti-SLAPP statute, which protects speakers from "strategic lawsuits against public participation."
The District of Columbia’s highest court Thursday announced a demanding new standard that plaintiffs must meet before they can obtain the names of anonymous Internet commenters.
The involvement of two disgraced judges in a $3.5 million defamation judgment against the Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Citizens' Voice persuaded a reviewing judge to recommend that the verdict be discarded, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.
A New Jersey judge has dismissed Donald Trump's libel lawsuit against an author who Trump had claimed underrepresented his personal wealth, The New York Times reported.
The former mayor of Raleigh, N.C. and a candidate for chairman of the state's Republican party has sued a local radio show host for libel, The Associated Press reports.
Fetzer stated in his complaint that he is not gay, according to the wire service, and that being called gay is defamatory because it is akin to charging him with a "crime or offense in moral turptitude."
A potentially misleading Fox News caption did not provide a sufficient basis for a finding of false and defamatory meaning when viewed as just one part of an entire broadcast, a California appeals court ruled Thursday in a 2-1 decision.
A Myrtle Beach, S.C. blogger lost a $1.8 million libel judgment in January, The Sun Newsreports, but a pending appeal and questions about possible procedural glitches in the lawsuit mean the case is not over yet.
A Massachusetts court last week dismissed a defamation lawsuit against the Wareham Observer using the state’s anti-SLAPP statute.
It appears to be the first case in Massachusetts in which a newspaper has successfully pursued an anti-SLAPP motion against a libel plaintiff who opposed it, said the newspaper's attorney, Michael Pezza.
A defamation lawsuit against U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) is set to be dismissed after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (D.C. Cir.) ruled Tuesday that the plaintiff had not shown that Murtha's disputed comments to news reporters went beyond the bounds of his job.
