Canadian high court has a media law-heavy docket

A Winnipeg Free Press columnist points out that it will be an interesting autumn for Canadian journalists as the Canadian Supreme Court takes on three media law issues in six different cases.

Two cases concern the issue of how much protection journalists can offer their confidential sources. Another two involve the issue of a libel defense for "responsible journalism," which sounds functionally similar to the U.S. "actual malice" test. And two more will make the court consider the longstanding practice in the country of applying broad sealing orders to pretrial proceedings in criminal cases.