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.
Articles published by the New York Daily News calling a former school principal a “firebrand” and a “principal of hate” are not defamatory because the statements are opinions, a New York Supreme Court judge ruled last week. The Supreme Court is the trial-level court in New York.
A New York appellate panel upheld the dismissal of a defamation suit filed by a journalist against a prominent AIDS activist who criticized her articles about the disease.
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.
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.
