The Shrivernator Returns: Award-Winning Journo Rejoins NBC News

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Both Today.com and MariaShriver.com announced today that the 57-year-old award-winning broadcast journalist, author of six books and former First Lady of California has rejoined NBC News as a special anchor on women's issues.

NBC News will exclusively broadcast the multiplatform Shriver Reports on the status of American women and their role in national issues. Shriver, the niece of the late President John F. Kennedy, was an NBC News anchor and correspondent from 1986 (the year she married beefy thespian Arnold Schwarzenegger) to 2004, when she assumed First Lady duties after her buff spouse became Governor of California. The couple separated in 2011.

Shriver won a Peabody Award for a Dateline story on single mothers on welfare, and first rose to prominence anchoring the Today Show.

Calif. Enacts Law Barring Release of Murdered Children's Med Rex & Autopsy Reports

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Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed into law S.B. 5, the Deceased Child Victims' Protection & Privacy Act, sponsored by Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth (R-San Diego), which enables legal guardians of murdered children to prevent the release of autopsy reports and medical records of the young victims, the Web site of Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reports.


Parents of murdered children can deprive the general public and the news media of access to the victims' autopsy reports and medical records. Although current law characterized autopsy reports as investigatory records exempt from disclosure under California's Public Records Act (Govt. Code Secs. 6250-6276.48), coroners and other records custodians could make such records public at their discretion.

At first glance, the measure seems a legitimate attempt to preserve the privacy of tragic minor victims and discourage morbid curiosity at the expense of the loved ones of murdered children.  Still, "TUOL" shares the concern of critics of a statute that sets the precedent of allowing non-elected individuals to regulate public access to governmental records. Moreover, child autopsy reports are a treasure trove of information and could, for example, reveal evidence of child abuse that otherwise might go undetected.

Calif. Solons Pop the Paparazzi

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The Sacramento Bee's CapitolAlert blog reports that A.B. 2479 is awaiting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's signature following a 41-13 vote by the California Assembly that may make news photographers' jobs a little bit harder to do.


The bill is intended to target paparazzi who are the bane of  celebrities, neither group of which is in short supply in sunny California. Assembly Bill 2479 subjects violators to civil lawsuits for false imprisonment if they physically harass individuals with their photographic or sound equipment.  The measure also imposes penalties for reckless driving in pursuit of a "visual image."

Legislators no doubt were contemplating the scenes played out on tabloid tv in which paparazzi surround a "helpless" celebrity in his or her vehicle, impeding the star's departure while they furiously record the celebrity's image.  It remains to be seen whether the bill would pass consitutional muster.

'Govenator' Expands California Anti-Paparazzi Law

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Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a target of celebrity photographers during his Hollywood days, signed a bill this week expanding his state's 11-year-old anti-paparazzi law that extends liability to the media outlets that pay for and publish the candid pictures.

The dogged freelance photogs who sell unauthorized snapshots of celebrities engaged in familial or personal activities could be criminally liable and subject to a maximum $50,000 fine under the new law. Media outlets (listen up, TMZ and National Enquirer) that initially publish paparazzi photos aware that the photos in question were improperly obtained are also liable under the amended anti-paparazzi statute.

Pursuant to Calif. Civ. Code Sec. 1708-1725, it is illegal for photographers to trespass, physically and constructively, to capture on film celebrities engaged in familial or personal activities in a "manner that is offensive to a reasonable person."

The amendment to the statute, which takes effect in January 2010, media advocates argue, could encourage timidity and hinder legitimate journalism outlets in the newsgathering process.