HawaiiReporter Case to Test Free Speech Rights

[ifcancan]

Re: HawaiiReporter Case to Test Free Speech Rights

This issue will be discussed tomorrow night on PBS at around 7:30. The host is Dan Boylan, who is pretty good at monitoring such topics.

[Creative-1]

Re: HawaiiReporter Case to Test Free Speech Rights

Heh! Just take a look at all those diet books on the market...and so many of them a financial success for the authors!

Mark Twain cautioned people about reading health books. You may die from a mis-print, he said.

[tutusue]

Re: HawaiiReporter Case to Test Free Speech Rights

[...]Just because it's in a book doesn't make it legitimate, [...]

Heh! Just take a look at all those diet books on the market...and so many of them a financial success for the authors!

[poinographer]

Re: HawaiiReporter Case to Test Free Speech Rights

From the word "author" we get "authority!"

...and, in turn, the word "author" came from Latin, where it simply meant "creator." After all, "authors" write fiction, too.

[Creative-1]

Re: HawaiiReporter Case to Test Free Speech Rights

There is an argument that you can't trust anything published on the internet because anyone can put something up on the internet.

The thing I think a lot of people don't realize is that anyone can publish a book/newspaper/what have you. Self-publishing, while not always cost effective, is no way confined only to the 'qualified'. Just because it's in a book doesn't make it legitimate, just as something doesn't lose its legitimacy automatically for being published on the internet.

From the word "author" we get "authority!"

[sophielynette]

Re: HawaiiReporter Case to Test Free Speech Rights

There is an argument that you can't trust anything published on the internet because anyone can put something up on the internet.

The thing I think a lot of people don't realize is that anyone can publish a book/newspaper/what have you. Self-publishing, while not always cost effective, is no way confined only to the 'qualified'. Just because it's in a book doesn't make it legitimate, just as something doesn't lose its legitimacy automatically for being published on the internet.

[mel]

Re: HawaiiReporter Case to Test Free Speech Rights

eBook readers and similar devices are already on the market. They haven't exactly caught on yet, but I agree with the assessment that nearly all news will be bundled in an electronic format of some type leaving paper behind.

Ever tried wrapping fish, swatting flies or picking up dead cockroaches with HawaiiReporter? It can't be done. Might wreck the computer. The good old Star-Bulletin and Advertiser paper editions can still do that.

[Creative-1]

Re: Hawaii Reporter Case to Test Free Speech Rights

I'm thinking that in the next 20 years, few of todays newspapers will actually still print on paper.

I suspect we'll all have "readers" that are book-sized and portable. The news will be downloaded to them.

The court should recognize this trend toward paperless. All of today's newspapers will be paper-free in our lifetimes. We'll be telling our grand kids about how, when we was young, paper boys used to throw the paper on our roofs! And we'd have to get the ladder our to download it!

If they use "paper" as a criteria for who is and who isn't a journalist, it will be a very short-lived legal precedent.

As an author, I'm looking at how this evolution will affect me. I'm spending almost ten grand this week to do my 4th printing. I anticipate one day, not having to do that.

Bob

[mel]

Re: HawaiiReporter Case to Test Free Speech Rights

The issue "Journalist vs. Blogger" will be the subject on "Island Insights" with Dan Boylan this coming Monday night, June 18 on PBS Hawaii (Channel 10 KHET) starting at 7:30 pm.

Island Insights
"Journalist vs. Blogger" — Hosted by Dan Boylan. Guests include Hawaii Reporter's Malia Zimmerman, attorney Jeffrey Portnoy, and criminal defense attorney Brook Hart.

Monday 7:30 pm

PBS Hawaii

[wildedrasco]

Re: HawaiiReporter Case to Test Free Speech Rights

How can we find out more on making Hawaii the 32nd state to
protect its journalists whether they're reporting in print or
over the Internet? That is a fundamental right we need to uphold.

[TuNnL]

Re: HawaiiReporter Case to Test Free Speech Rights

If one must decide whether it's a blog or a newspaper, I choose newspaper. Zimmerman's entitled to treatment as a journalist, since that's MOSTLY the way she's conducted herself.

Having met Malia personally, I can say she is a nice person. As an educator, though, Scrivener, I have to question how you can judge the content of Zimmerman’s blog based solely on the professional conduct of the editor. I for one, would say her conduct is suspect, and most media professionals (and professors) would agree that her editorial slant undermines her credibility.

[1stwahine]

Re: HawaiiReporter Case to Test Free Speech Rights

Mine's up!

http://www.auntiepupule.com/blog/index.php?id=1042

Auntie Lynn

[pzarquon]

Re: HawaiiReporter Case to Test Free Speech Rights

The Star-Bulletin weighs in: Internet journalist's sources should be kept confidential. (Hawaii Reporter is called an "a Hawaii news Web site and Malia an "Internet journalist.") Not sure if the Advertiser (or any of its many bloggers) have taken a stance yet.

I liked Doug White's summary of the case (though he clearly falls on the 'she's a blogger' side of the fence!). I blogged it as well, and hope other local bloggers do the same... because whatever Zimmerman calls herself and her site, her case is quite relevant to what we do.

Interestingly, when Googling around for some background, I ended up back at my own site. Google remembered, though I didn't, that I recorded a panel discussion featuring Malia, Burt Lum and I back in 2004. The Hawaii Community Media Council convened a session on "digital journalism." And even back then (when it was the Jennifer Toma Bainum flap), there were questions over what a blog is and isn't, and whether sites like Hawaii Reporter are "legitimate" media.

[timkona]

Re: HawaiiReporter Case to Test Free Speech Rights

Writing is the salve applied to the relentless mind to keep it healthy and thriving.

[MonkeyMan]

Re: HawaiiReporter Case to Test Free Speech Rights

So if Malia writes a news story and posts it on her internet site, it's not a news story? Just by the mere fact that it's posted on an internet site using software that stacks the stories one on top of the other, that disqualifies it as a news story?

Of course, it's not a NEWSPAPER. No paper involved. But it is a NEWS STORY.

The medium of delivery is inconsequential. If that were the only issue, Malia should just print out her web page, run it down to the local copy shop and make a few dozen copies to give away.

Would that then make her news story legitimate, as it has now been committed to paper rather than pixels?

No difference.

People need to forget about the delivery method and look at the story as it was delivered, and they need to look at the content of the story. The questions that need to be asked all pertain to how the story's information was acquired, researched and delivered.

Did Malia libel or slander anyone in presenting the story? Did she present unfounded accusations, or did she have facts and witnesses to back up the statements she made in her story.

If she does have proof of her claims and she has not commited tort in her delivery, then she is a journalist.

Whether she presented her journalism over the internet or on a printed page has no bearing.

That's my grok, anyway.