Winning the right to be wrong

The Supreme Court of Canada is currently (Wednesday, Feb. 18) hearing an important test case involving libel law. The Ottawa Citizen, joined by other major newspapers and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, is appealing a jury award of $125,000 to an Ontario policeman, on the grounds the news story was adequately researched and was in the public interest. At stake is the long-standing requirement in law that reporters must be able to prove the truth of every statement in a story in court, in order to avoid a defamation ruling. Under existing practice, lawyers for the newspapers have argued, it is too easy for parties wishing to avoid public scrutiny to use the threat of a libel action to avoid press coverage. What is needed, they have argued, is a new doctrine under which a reporter who can show he or she inquired into a situation fully and fairly, and who produced a story that was in the public interest, can avoid sanctions under the defamation statutes. Such a change could apply to bloggers as well as print and electronic journalists, and could have the useful side-effect of forcing those posting information online to professionalize their work, something that is badly needed now. The court is likely to take some time to decide what to do with this case. But questions put to lawyers for both sides Tuesday suggest at least some of the judges are having problems with the idea that a public interest should be allowed equal time with considerations of personal reputation when it comes to considering defamation issues."If it is in the public interest, then they have the right to be wrong?" Madam Justice Rosalie Abella asked during Tuesday's hearing, according to Kirk Makin's account in The Globe and Mail. "If they have acted in the public interest, yes, they would have that right to be wrong," replied Paul Schabas, a lawyer for the Toronto Star.

Some people want information to be free

Unless they created it themselves, that is. Jeff Jarvis, for example, author of the well-known blog Buzz Machine, makes at least part of his living charging people to hear and read content he has created. He has argued tirelessly that content on the Internet, including news, should be free for everyone to use, whether it is created by professionals or not. Newspapers, as entities that have survived by charging for their content, are therefore as dead as Monty Python's parrot, in Jarvis' view. Allan Mutter (Reflections of a Newsosaur) skewered this hypocrisy nicely today (Feb. 17, 2009) but, in light of all the posts arguing back, it's clear the webbies will continue to insist that if they can find something online, they should have the God-given right to use it without paying for it, whether it has been created by somebody who knows what they are doing, or by Monty Python. This raises interesting questions about exactly how sophisticated these folks are when it comes to the credibility of their news sources (the earth really is flat: I read it on the web!), and how they would like it if somebody threatened their livelihood by suggesting that since they aren't the only (pick one: plumber, lawyer, web designer, bail bondsman, or whatever) in the market, they must therefore donate their services rather than charge for them. Everyone loves a free lunch. But the web seems to attract a particular crowd that believes not only that they should eat free at every meal, but that means everything on the menu is good and that eating free is their perfect right. In fact, they see this as a business plan. Good luck with that, gang.

Supplementary income

Times are truly getting tough in the print media business. The first body hit the floor in Calgary Thursday, Feb. 12, with the announcement that Calgary Inc., the business magazine published by RedPoint Media Group, will suspend publication in March. We are sorry to see the magazine go and hope there are no more announcements like this. But the economy is hurting everyone, the news business included, so its entirely possible there will be more casualties. On another front, journalists are having to resort to some new tactics to keep the wolf from the door. David Mayo, a sports columnist in Grand Rapids, Mich., had his own little safety net but that one is going to land him in court.

The hot breath of the news media

Pack journalism is apparently getting to be a little too much for the premier of Ontario. Dalton McGuinty Wednesday, Feb. 11 implored reporters and camera people at the Ontario Legislature to stand at least five feet back from him while scrumming. For non-Canadians, scrum is our word for those scenes in which the politician is tracked down in public and surrounded by press folks while taking questions. One Washington reporter of our acquaintance said these are called availabilities in the U.S. capital. That's a nice corporate term but we like scrum better. It sounds kind of sweaty and close and borderline dangerous, which is what accountability is usually like. Guess that was the problem in Toronto. It shouldn't long before the media handlers for other premiers, MLAs, mayors, aldermen, businessmen, lawyers, labour leaders and celebrities start getting standoffish as well. Too bad.

Erratum

Thanks to Kevin Green of SAIT's Radio Television Broadcast News program for pointing out that Montreal does have two English-language TV stations. Wrong information appeared in an earlier post on this site, So Long, Tom and Sally?

Images and the Law

An important issue for journalists, particularly those who work on the visual side, is unfolding in the U.S. just now. Resolution of this matter may go some way to determining whether journalists can be said to 'own' the work they create, or whether it becomes public property once they have published it and thus open to exploitation by others. The issue involves the well-known Obama Hope poster, which gained widespread circulation during last year's presidential election in the U.S. The poster was the work of a Los Angeles street artist, Shepherd Fairey, who basically took an image captured by freelance photographer Mannie Garcia for the Associated Press in 2006, reworked it to resemble his own graffiti style, and began circulating it. The Obama campaign never adopted it officially but its widespread use certainly did nothing to discourage support for the Democratic candidate, or interest in the creator of the poster. Earlier this month, The AP reportedly signalled its intention to sue Fairey for infringement of its copyright on the image, a standard big media tactic. The news service didn't follow through, however, and earlier this week, Fairey and his lawyers at the Fair Use Project at the Stanford University Law School, turned the tables by suing AP, claiming the poster was an allowed use under U.S. copyright law. At this writing, The AP had not responded formally to the suit. To complicate matters further, the photographer has been quoted in news accountsas saying he had no problem with Fairey's poster and felt the situation was "unique." Fairey, meanwhile, was the subject of a piece this week on CBC's The Current.
Journalists would be well advised to keep an eye on this one for a couple of reasons. Should a judge end up siding with Fairey that his use of Garcia's image was fair, it could open the way to widespread exploitation of material which had formerly been protected under law. All an artist, or anyone else for that matter, would need to do would be to give a photo a few digital tweaks and voila, an original work which itself could be protected by copyright law. (One nice potential irony here would be if someone were to rework Fairey's poster and gain the same protection for the do-over that he is seeking). Also buried in this maze is the perpetual issue of who actually owns work done by freelancers, the client or the contractor? I'm not clear on the state of the law on that one in the U.S. but in Canada, this issue has been a point of real contention in recent years and as far as I know hasn't been fully sorted out.

So long, Tom and Sally?

Could the days of local TV news be numbered?
Maybe. CanWest Global, Canada's big TV-newspaper company, which is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, announced last week (Feb. 5, 2009) it was putting five local TV stations on the sales block, including outlets in Montreal, Hamilton, Ont. and Victoria. All five stations are the only news stations in their respective markets, in English. With the recession in full cry and revenue plunging at all Canadian media companies, it isn't clear who, if anyone, might buy these assets and keep their local news anchors on the air. What it clear is that, without the local news coverage these stations provide, journalism in these communities may be about to take a hit, and that isn't a good thing. The same fate might be in store for numerous communities in U.S., according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Maybe this is the time for our broadcast regulators to step forward and insist either that journalists with an interest in covering local news be granted space on the cable grids in their communities, on a free basis, or that the cable companies themselves be required to invest seriously in local news coverage as a condition of their holding licenses.

Evolution

There are a couple of interesting trends emerging in the Obama White House. No, we're not referring to the return of Big Government, or wide-open public works expenditures, or rampant environmentalism, although all of those also are very much on the agenda just now. The trends we're referring to have to do with the way the new president is communicating with Americans, and who is covering him.
Much has been made in the press, especially since the Inauguration, of Obama's communications style. Would he, commentators have asked, model his approach on that of Franklin Roosevelt, the last president to enter office in the middle of a Depression? In addition to emulating FDR's prescription for fighting economic crisis with wads of federal money, would he also seek to emulate FDR's communications strategy of holding regular fireside chats with Americans? It's still early days for the new president but the answer to the latter question is already in, and it is a resounding yes. Since taking office, Obama has been on TV and radio pretty much every day, talking about the economic crisis and what he wants to do about it. There have been some missteps and already some in the so-called chattering classes are dismissing all this message work as boring, old hat, or spin. But setting aside the predictable complaints, what is more interesting is the way the president is adapting his successful campaign tactics to his new situation. Of particular note was the town hall session on the economy Obama staged this past Monday, Feb. 9 in Elkhart, Indiana. I didn't catch all of it, but the clip I did see had the president, looking very relaxed and in his element, wandering the stage in the centre of a large, responsive crowd, mic in hand, talking about the eocnomy and the government's plans. Two things jumped out at me: I believe this was exactly how Obama used to conduct community sessions back in Chicago when he was a community organizer. Facing a big challenge, you build support for your leadership and your plan by talking to your community openly, not by communicating through intermediaries or the media. The format is perfect for a president who needs to build consensus and cultivate the appearance of openness without allowing himself to get bogged down in inside politics or the agendas of others. The president can sell his plan, and appear to be taking questions without actually doing so. It also looks great on TV. Here's a prediction that the town hall format will end up being Obama's version of the fireside chat. Secondly, the folks covering the new president are a notably different group than the old White House press gallery. Whereas Bush and previous presidents mostly faced a press pack made up of representatives of mainstream news outlets, the new group includes fewer newspaper and TV network reps, and many more people from so-called niche publications, many of which serve specialized audiences interested in coverage of particular issues. Some of these audiences are paying big bucks for quality information on their areas of interest, and many of the news outlets are delivering their information online. This, of course, means coverage will be more immediate, probing and critical, at least in the interest areas of the publications involved. But the overall White House news report is also likely to be more fragmented and, frankly, less interesting and useful to general audiences. This may well create major agenda-setting opportunities for a president who is already proving adept at getting his message out. But it may not end up serving the general public well, particularly in terms of making the new administration accountable on issues of concern to the broad community. Watching this situation play out over the next couple of years should prove very interesting.

The future of newspapers

In case you hadn't noticed, there is a huge debate under way online about the future of newspapers. Several things seem to have prompted this: The economic slowdown, Tribune Co.'s bankruptcy declaration, the financial problems of the New York Times and, here in Canada, the near death experience Canwest Global is having. Three pieces seem useful today on this topic. Doug Firby, former editorial page editor of the Calgary Herald, speculates on the future of Canwest in Maclean's, while Alan Mutter, former newspaper exec turned Silicon Valley info exec, offers some fairly hard-headed business analysis of the paper-on-the-web idea. There's been much good stuff on the Mutter site on these matters of late, so a tour of his archives would be worthwhile for those interested in the topic. Perhaps the most interesting piece, though, isn't about newspapers at all. The current edition of The Economist has a piece on YouTube and Hula.com and their respective records in attracting paid advertising. The magazine argues that the fact Hula.com has ad dollars rolling in, despite the fact it isn't nearly as popular with users as YouTube is due to the fact the content on Hula is created by professionals, while any amateur is welcome to post almost anything on YouTube. The message, of course, is that good content can still pay its way, even online, while the other kind, including most of what you can read on blogs proporting to be 'news' sites, is worth exactly what it cost you to access it. The big problem, of course, is that it will take some time for professional news sites to gain enough of an audience to start paying their way and it may never happen. Until then, somehow, we'll just have to keep publishing newspapers, even if that means reworking the business formula to make that possible.