Editors' Blog | Journalism.co.uk » California

California signs new anti-paparazzi legislation into law

Rachel McAthy — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 12:21:39 +0000

California has signed into law legislation which seeks to provide new remedies for invasion of privacy and higher penalties for reckless driving by members of the paparrazi.

The new measures will mean that photographers can be sentenced to up to a year in prison for reckless driving while trying to photograph or film people. The law will come into effect at the start of January, according to a post on by the International Forum for Responsible Media Blog.

Inforrm also refers to Clause 1(b) which clarifies liabilities for invasion of privacy in reference to surveillance techniques:

A person is liable for constructive invasion of privacy when the defendant attempts to capture, in a manner that is offensive to a reasonable person, any type of visual image, sound recording,or other physical impression of the plaintiff engaging in a personal or familial activity under circumstances in which the plaintiff had a reasonable expectation of privacy, through the use of a visual or auditory enhancing device, regardless of whether there is a physical trespass, if this image, sound recording, or other physical impression could not have been achieved without a trespass unless the visual or auditory enhancing device was used.

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Overheard: Journalists assess Palin speech; prove they can be caught by a live mic too

Joel Gunter — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:46:40 +0000

A handful of journalists covering Sarah palin’s speech in Turlock, California have fallen pray to an open mic. Hear the rather funny results below.

Source: Village VoiceSimilar Posts:

CNET News: Journalist shield law may not prevent iPhone prototype investigation

Judith Townend — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 09:18:44 +0000

Over in the US the iPhone prototype drama continues, as Gawker Media challenges the legality of the search warrant served on Gizmodo editor Jason Chen, last Friday. Gawker’s Gizmodo site had received an iPhone 4G protoype and revealed its features online. As CNet reported:

Police have seized computers and servers belonging to an editor of Gizmodo in an investigation that appears to stem from the gadget blog’s purchase of a lost Apple iPhone prototype.

Gawker claimed the search warrant was invalid under a part of California law. This part of the law, CNET reported, ” prevents judges from signing warrants that target writers for newspapers, magazines, or ‘other periodical publications.’”

But yesterday CNET reported that Gizmodo might not be protected by journalist shield law after all.

If Gizmodo editors are, in fact, a target of a criminal probe into the possession or purchase of stolen property, the search warrant served on editor Jason Chen on Friday appears valid. A blog post at NYTimes.com on Monday, citing unnamed law enforcement officials, said charges could be filed against the buyer of the prototype 4G phone – meaning Gizmodo.

Background to the Gizmodo scoop at this link. Promo video below:

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Telegraph.co.uk: Why is the right to refuse to disclose information the preserve of journalists?

Judith Townend — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:58:12 +0000

The Telegraph’s Kate Day looks at a case in California: a student journalist in was granted the legal protection given to professional journalists when a judge overturned a police search warrant.

That prompts Day to ask: “When it comes to the right to refuse to disclose information, why is that the preserve of journalists? Surely in a free society we all have the right to remain silent?”

Full post at this link…Similar Posts:

OUT-LAW.com: Google not liable for defamation in snippets, rules Eady

Laura Oliver — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:10:17 +0000

Google is not liable as a publisher even if ‘snippets’ (the summaries contained in its search results) contain libellous words, a high court ruled last week.

The search engine’s UK and US divisions were sued in England by a training business over comments about its distance learning courses made on a US web forum – an excerpt of which then appeared in search results for the firm.

“Google said that Google Inc. should be sued in California, not England. But even if England is the proper forum, it argued, Google has no responsibility for the words complained of, and therefore there is ‘no reasonable prospect of success’ which is a requirement of rules on serving lawsuits outside the court’s jurisdiction,” reports OUT-LAW.com.

In his ruling, Mr Justice Eady made some additional, significant comments (close to this writer’s heart):

“There appears to be no previous English authority dealing with this modern phenomenon (…) Indeed, it is surprising how little authority there is within this jurisdiction applying the common law of publication or its modern statutory refinements to Internet communications.”

Full story at this link…Similar Posts:

AP: Journalism Online says 10 per cent will pay for news

Laura Oliver — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:48:04 +0000

Journalism Online, the recently launched project aimed at creating online pay walls/subscription packages for newspaper and magazine publishers, says it expects 10 per cent of internet news readers will pay for content.

The organisation has set an average of $25 a month, or $300 annually, as the figure it believes consumers are willing to pay for ‘professionally produced stories on the web’, based on research.

If it reaches this target the new venture would generate significant income for newspaper and magazine partners, the AP reports.

“Journalism Online thinks it can help by serving up a smorgasbord of online newspaper and magazine content that enables readers to pay a single vendor for coverage pulled from multiple Web sites. The subscription packages, for instance, might cater to Web surfers willing to pay for the best stories about entertainment, business or even something even more specialized like California politics,” the AP states.

Full story at this link…Similar Posts:

YouTube names winner of videojournalism contest

Laura Oliver — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:43:23 +0000

YouTube named the winner of its first journalist contest on Sunday. Arturo Perez Jr took the top prize in the Project:Report competition, which saw participants enter short films in three rounds of video assignments.

Perez was awarded the $10,000 funding prize to travel and work with the Pulitzer Center to produce a report at a ceremony on Sunday night. His winning entry ‘Abilities’ featured residents of Camphill, California – a community where adults with developmental disabilities live, learn and work together – documenting their day-to-day lives on video.

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News channel’s cit-j footage of Oakland shooting goes viral

Judith Townend — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:11:34 +0000

The video of the police shooting of Oscar Grant III in Oakland, California, has spread quickly over YouTube in the last week, greatly influencing the nature of the media reports. The most popular video is the clip that originally aired on news channel KTVU, a FOX affiliate in the San Francisco Bay Area.

WashingtonPost.com reports:

“Handheld video-enabled cameras and cell phones at the ready, alert witnesses at the scene caught the shooting and the moments that preceded it from different angles.

“In one of their videos, an onlooker yells at a woman recording the scene: ‘Put it on YouTube!’

“Local and national television stations have aired and re-aired excepts from the raw and grainy videos, which have taken on a new life online.”

Imagine if such footage existed in cases such as the UK police shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes: how would reportage or subsequent events have been different? Would the UK media have used the footage in the same way?

Also – does film like this show that we have reached a point where video quality can be disregarded when it’s a strong news story?

Watch the YouTube video ‘Bart Police shooting in Oakland KTVU report‘ here:

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EditorsWeblog: US newspaper creates local press institute for citizen journalism

Laura Oliver — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:04:53 +0000

A California Michigan newspaper has formed ‘The Oakland Press Institute for Citizen Journalism,’ in response to the ‘changing face’ of the industry, the Editors Weblog.Similar Posts:

New media types among Evening Standard’s 1000 most influential Londoners

Judith Townend — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:49:59 +0000

Peter Mandelson had to be a last minute addition to the list because the magazine had already gone to press: being offline seems to be a recurring theme for the London Evening Standard’s 1000 most influential Londoners list, out this evening.

Can we get an online version? Can we heck! After time wasted going round the editorial houses through the Evening Standard switchboard, Brighton-based Journalism.co.uk is getting sent a print version.

So in the meantime (till the print copy arrives) here’s the online media and general media types we’ve spotted on the list of 50 that are featured on the website. And it looks like new media gets a fairly good representation.

The little ‘see new media’ under the names almost had us thinking we could click on links… no chance. Well, we’re not in London; we don’t really exist, clearly.

Shiny Media’s three founders are included – and quoted as being “highly influential in the UK online world”. They aren’t among the very top 50, but you can see a scanned in bit of the list on the Shiny blog.

Media/Online types from the top 50:

Nikesh Arora, GOOGLE, EUROPEAN VP: Boss of the internet giant’s most important base outside California, bringing in close to a billion pounds a year in advertising revenue in the UK. Landed Google job after 17 interviews. (New Media, TV & Radio)

Jonathan Ive, 41, APPLE, DESIGN GURU: The world’s most influential product designer, involved in the iPhone and iPod. He is returning to British roots, buying a £2.5 million retreat here. (New Media)

Mark Thompson, 51, BBC, DIRECTOR-GENERAL: From deception scandals to swingeing job cuts, Thompson has had to weather many storms while rival broadcasters pitch for a slice of the corporation’s income from the licence fee (Television & Radio)

Outside of the big 50 we’ll have to rely on the Guardian’s Media Monkey for information:

“…chief exec James Murdoch, Ashley Highfield, chief exec of the Kangaroo on-demand TV project and, drum roll please, Evening Standard owner Lord Rothermere, chairman of DMGT! Who’d have thunk that thisislondon.co.uk was such a groundbreaker?

Other media bods on the list were Paul Darce, Rebecca Wade, Ed Richards, Mark Thompson, Simon Cowell, Simon Fuller, Nick Ferrari, Emily Bell, Eric Huggers, Evan Davies, John Humphrys, Jay Hunt, Peter Horrocks, Alexandra Shulman and Gok Wan.”

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Richard Koci Hernandez named multimedia fellow at Berkeley, resurrects Multimediashooter

Judith Townend — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:37:11 +0000

The University of California at Berkeley has given a Ford Foundation multimedia fellowship to Richard Koci Hernandez, current deputy director of multimedia at the San Jose Mercury News.

His aim is to develop digital news sites for under-served communities, according to the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), where Hernandez has led a series of multimedia workshops.

Hernandez is also reviving his website, www.multimediashooter.com, which was shut down earlier this year after being repeatedly hacked.Similar Posts:

Spleak launches new online communities

Laura Oliver — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:17:35 +0000

California-based startup Spleak Media Network has launched three new online applications for fashion, TV and gaming communities.

StyleSpleak, TVSpleak and GameSpleak will work in the same way as the company’s existing sites by providing short-form news and gossip updates alongside comments and contributions from users, and content from partnered media organisations such as Hearst Digital.

The Spleak applications are available on instant messaging platforms, social networking sites and mobile phones.

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Crowd-funded journalism project Spot.us starts first campaign

Laura Oliver — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:38:14 +0000

Spot.us, a project to fund community news stories by donations from that audience, has started to raise money for its first brief – a feature on the supply of biofuels to California.

This is the first project submitted to Spot.us, which was set up by David Cohn in May with the help of a grant of $340,000 from the Knight News Challenge.

The brief is asking for a 1,500-2,000 word feature with photos and has been submitted by Alexis Madrigal, a staff writer at Wired.com.

So far $50 has been pledged out of a required $250 with two contributions (one anonymous and one from Cohn himself) of $25.

The site is not-for-profit so the donations will be used to fund the journalism and get articles wider distribution through local media outlets.Similar Posts:

Online Journalism Review closes, “good night and good luck”

John Thompson — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:12:32 +0000

Online Journalism Review has closed its doors after a decade of covering developments in new media publishing.

The website, run by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication, aimed to “help mid-career journalists make a successful transition from other media to online reporting and production”, and now intends to continue to do so via the Knight Digital Media Center and its blogs.

OJR author Robert Nile has now left the University of Southern California but continue to write about new media and journalism at his new website SensibleTalk.com.Similar Posts:

Innovations in Journalism – PRs, sources – time to Help A Reporter Out

Laura Oliver — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:02:01 +0000

We give developers the opportunity to tell us journalists why we should sit up and pay attention to the sites and devices they are working on. Showing us its wares today is the aptly named HelpAReporter.com – set-up by Peter Shankman.

1) Who are you and what’s it all about?
HelpAReporter was designed simply to help journalists find the sources they need without a lot of hassle. I started the site for two simple reasons:

a) I think that other services are more about making money and less about actually getting reporters what they need. “I need someone who understands 18th century art” turns into 600 emails that say “I once saw a piece of 18th century art as I WAS WRITING MY BOOK ON HOW TO SELL THINGS ON THE INTERNET DO YOU WANT A COPY TO REVIEW?!”

b) I think that in the end, reporters don’t WANT to hate publicists, and publicists don’t WANT to come across as idiots. I’d like to help prove that.

2) Why would this be useful to a journalist?
Journalists start every single day behind the eight-ball. They need sources. Sadly, most publicists send emails that do nothing more than waste their time. I’m trying to change that – journalists simply submit their queries at www.helpareporter.com/press, and it goes out to my list – now over 10,000 sources big. They can put in their email or go anonymously if they choose.

I make all my sources promise to stay on topic, and not waste a journalist’s time. So far, they’re all agreeing! That rocks.

3) Is this it, or is there more to come?
I never say never – I didn’t expect this to be any bigger than the original Facebook group I started. Now, 10k members and growing? Who knows how big it’ll go?

4) Why are you doing this?
Here’s why… The site takes probably 15 minutes a day to administer. I simply take the emails, put them into a text document, at a few times a day, send them out through the email distribution list.

Too many people (in this industry and well as in the world) simply live on a ‘ME, ME, ME’ mentality. Why not do something good for others? I’ve been very fortunate – The companies I’ve started have all done very well. Why shouldn’t I give something back to account for all that luck? The fact that more people don’t think like that kinda saddens me – but on the plus side, it means that I can shine without doing that much extra. So it’s a nice balance.

5) What does it cost to use it?
The site is 100% free for both journalists and sources.

6) How will you make it pay?
Right now, I don’t need to. Perhaps I will one day? A text ad? Who knows. Right now, if people really like it, I invite them to donate to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in California. Perhaps one day I’ll sell it, or start some small advertising on it. For now, it’s totally not necessary.Similar Posts: