« Environment - "After near-record lows, Lake Michigan's water level rises nearly 2 feet" | Main | Courts - More on "Pushing the Supreme Court Toward Transparency" »
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Ind. Decisions - More on: Appeal withdrawn by Terre Haute Tribune-Star in $1.5 million defamation case
Updating this ILB entry from April 21st, Tracy Warner, editorial page editor of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, writes today:
One of the concepts I teach students in my communications law class at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne is that of qualified privilege, sometimes called fair report privilege.The basic concept is that if journalists report accurately and fairly on what happens in government – in Congress or in a City Council meeting or in a courtroom – they are immune from a libel conviction connected to that reporting. The same idea applies to information that journalists obtain from court records and other government documents open to the public.
“The fair report privilege protects media reports of official government actions, regardless of possible defamatory elements in those reports,” Kyu Ho Youm, a First Amendment expert and professor at the University of Oregon, writes in the textbook “Communication and the Law.”
“The rationale is that citizens in a participatory democracy are entitled to such information,” Youm writes.
Courts have upheld the concept. But in a notable exception last July, a Sullivan County jury ordered the Terre Haute Tribune-Star to pay a Clay County deputy sheriff $1.5 million for accurately reporting about a complaint filed against him. * * *
The jury’s decision to award damages against the newspaper in spite of its accurate reporting sent chills through the journalism community, which regularly – and rightly – reports when official allegations are made against police officers.
The Tribune-Star filed an appeal, which First Amendment experts expected to be successful. But suddenly and surprisingly, the newspaper dropped its appeal. Court records indicate it was dropped after settlement negotiations began.
The newspaper owners aren’t talking about it – out-of-court settlements typically forbid either side to give any terms of the settlement. The Sullivan County ruling does not set a legal precedent, but it is a shame that it never made it to the Indiana Court of Appeals.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 28, 2009 08:18 AM
Posted to Ind. Trial Ct. Decisions