Jersey Court Rules Blogger Not Protected By Shield Law, Must Divulge Source

Oprano

An appellate court in New Jersey has ruled that a woman who slammed the software company Too Much Media on a message board isn't a "journalist" for purposes of the state's shield law. The controversial ruling means that the posts' author, life coach Shellee Hale of Washington state, can be ordered to divulge her sources for her online remarks about Too Much Media, which is suing Hale for defamation.

New Jersey's reporter shield law broadly allows journalists to protect the identity of their confidential sources. But the appellate court ruled that not all writers are entitled to claim the benefits of that law "lest anyone with a webpage or who posts materials on the Internet would qualify."

The lawsuit grew out of allegedly defamatory posts by Hale on Oprano, which describes itself as "the Wall Street Journal for the online adult entertainment industry." In one post, Hale hinted that Too Much Media engaged in "fraudulent, unethical and illegal uses of technology," according to the court's opinion.

Too Much Media subsequently sued Hale for defamation, and as the case progressed, attempted to discover the identities of people who provided information to Hale. She argued that the state's shield law gave her the right to protect her sources' identities.

A trial judge rejected Hale's argument and an appellate court upheld that ruling this week. The appellate court said that Hale's posts to the message board were more akin to a letter to the editor than a work of journalism.

"Although any attempt at defining 'news' would ultimately prove illusory, some delimiting standards must pertain lest anyone with a webpage or who posts materials on the Internet would qualify," the court stated.

The judges then went on to outline specific reasons why Hale didn't qualify as a journalist: "Defendant has produced no credentials or proof of affiliation with any recognized news entity, nor has she demonstrated adherence to any standard of professional responsibility regulating institutional journalism, such as editing, fact-checking or disclosure of conflicts of interest."

Too Much Media's lawyer, Joel Kreizman, says that the court correctly decided that Hale wasn't acting as a journalist when she made the posts. "A journalist would issue a report," he says. "These posts were on a message board as opposed to any kind of blog."

But Hale's lawyer, Jeffrey Pollock, criticized the decision. He says that New Jersey doesn't require that journalists have credentials or work for established news outlets to qualify for the shield law. Instead, he says, the only criteria is whether people gathered information for the purpose of publication.

"If she doesn't qualify, who the hell does?" he asks. "How do you decide who's in and who's out?"

4 comments about "Jersey Court Rules Blogger Not Protected By Shield Law, Must Divulge Source".
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  1. Ellen Higgins from MIT Sloan Management Review, April 26, 2010 at 8:18 a.m.

    YES! from a former journalist.

  2. Christopher Baccus from Wunderman, April 26, 2010 at 9:16 a.m.

    So I'm confused by the headline of this story. Were the "posts" written as a blog story on a blog or were they simply comments on a forum/message board. Seems this issue is confused in the headline as the latter part of the story says the posts were simply done on a message board.

    Can the author of this story please clarify this?

    Thank you

  3. Mai Kok from So What, April 26, 2010 at 10:40 a.m.

    This is a GREAT ruling. I'm not a journalist but too many people who write online, blog online, etc - and have no journalist credentials - hide behind journalism. Absurd!

    Just because you write something does NOT make you a journalist!

    And to Christopher - I think if you read the article again, you'll see that the defendant CLAIMED journalism as her defense but her posting was on a forum. So in other words, the website sued her for posting her comments, and her defense was "I'm a journalist".

    To be fair - forum moderators should have rules stating that if a poster makes accusations, insinuations or such similar remarks, they should back it up with a link. Many other forums have such policies and have moderators that do that.

    But at the same time, this defendant - and others like her - cannot be allowed to say whatever they want and then claim "journalist" as a defense.

    In fact, I think search engines (Google) should really start assessing whether a blogger has credentials or not. Those with credentials should end up with higher rankings. That might seem unfair to some people and to some SEOs, but so what?

  4. David Smith from Synchroneon, Inc, April 26, 2010 at 12:33 p.m.

    This is one of the most confusing articles I've read in a long time. The author does not seem to know what her point is nor is there any clear indication of the allegations. It's not reporting and it's not op ed. What is it?

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