Online journalists should check out this really useful post by Ed Walker, online communities editor for Media Wales, looking at some important questions surrounding the legal challenges for online news outlets.
Prompted by a bit of media law refresher training, Walker refers to three scenarios in particular, which were put to him during training and undoubtedly reflect events in newsrooms on a daily basis:
- What to do when faced with a rolling crime news story: how should you cover each new piece of information? How can you ensure the content on your site is contemporaneous?
- How should you use content from social media, if at all. How should journalists be using social networks? Is it fair to use quotes from comments on people’s walls? What about photographs? Who would the copyright belong to?
- How should you deal with comments on stories? Should you pre or post-moderate? Should every story be allowed them? Should journalists respond?
While you’re thinking about what you would do, read his post in full here to see what solutions his training group came up with.