Ingwerson Takes the Helm of Christian Science Monitor Next Month

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After 14 years as managing editor of The Christian Science Monitor, Marshall Ingwerson will become editor next month, the Associated Press reported today.

John Yemma, a former Boston Globe and Dallas Morning News reporter who has been the Monitor's editor since 2008, is stepping down to concentrate on writing, the AP article stated.  Before becoming managing editor of the 105-year-old Monitor, which became digital-only in April 2009, Ingwerson was, at various times,  the paper's correspondent in Moscow, Miami, Washington and Los Angeles.

Cable News Rivals Compete to Kill-Off Ill Congressman

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Eighty-two-year-old Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.), whose 43 years in the House makes him Florida's longest-serving Congressman, is gravely ill at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, according to an Associated Press report today.

A sad turn of events for Young, who just last week announced his intent to retire from Congress, but not as sad as the fate bestowed on him yesterday, initially by Fox News' Gretchen Carlson on-air, and then via Twitter separately by MSNBC's Frank Thorp and Luke Russert, according to the Politico Web site.

During her afternoon gabfest, Carlson reported a Fox News Alert that Young had died, only to apologize and issue a correction later in the broadcast. Meanwhile, Russert and Thorp each tweeted that Young wouldn't get any older, only to tweet again that their reports of his death, like Mark Twain once said, were greatly exaggerated.

As a long-time member of the House Appropriations Committee, Young oversaw military appropriations. Unfortunately, for him and his loved ones, there is no defense to sloppy journalism. "Get it first, get it fast, and (maybe) get it right," just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Cut! (but Don't Print): Paramount Pictures Axing 5 Percent of Workforce

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 Paramount Pictures, the fifth-oldest surviving movie studio from Hollywood's heyday and a Viacom Intl. Inc. subsidiary, will slash five percent of its 2200-member workforce, the Associated Press reported yesterday.

Roughly 110 positions will be eliminated, according to the AP story, as part of a global reorganization. Paramount CEO Frederick Huntsberry told employees in a memo yesterday that the impact would spread across several departments, including marketing and finance.

A number of successful film series have been cranked out by Paramount over the years, including the Star Trek, Beverly Hills Cop and Shrek franchises, as well as Kung Fu Panda and Friday the 13th.

Penthouse Magazine Goes Bust?; Parent Co. Files Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

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'Time' to Eat & Travel

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Time, Inc., the nation's largest magazine publisher, will acquire Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure and the rest of the stable of American Express, Inc.'s publishing arm, according to the Associated Press.

Financial terms of the deal, which is expected to close during the last quarter of 2013, were not disclosed. The deal will be finalized at around the same time Time Warner Inc. splits off  the Time, Inc. magazine division, publisher of Time, Sports Illustrated and People, among other titles, from Time Warner, which will concentrate on Warner Bros. studio and its tv holdings (See "TUOL" post 3/7/13].

Forbes' Case of Mistaken Preference Prompts Apology to Ireland Prez

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An online article in Forbes magazine that erroneously described the 72-year-old president of Ireland as an "acknowledged homosexual" has prompted the business periodical to apologize to its readers and to the Emerald Isle's leader, the Associated Press reported today.

Michael D. Higgins, a Limerick native who is married and the father of four, has not responded to Forbes' gaffe or apology. Higgins, a poet who was elected President in 2011 defeated, among other candidates, openly gay Sen. David Norris, according to the AP story. Billionaire founder of the magazine, Malcolm Forbes, was outed by a magazine as gay shortly after his death in 1990.

Forbes has since pulled the inaccurate story from its Web site.

Marijuana Mags Ask Fed Court in Colo. to Bale Them Out in 1st Amendment Suit

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A trio of magazines promoting marijuana use last week filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado to stop enactment of a state law that would restrict access of the journals to persons under age 21.

Colorado voters last November passed Amendment 64 legalizing recreational use of marijuana by adults.  Gov. John Hickenlooper last Tuesday signed into law H.B. 13-1317, scheduled to take effect in July, that mandates non-marijuana stores to keep cannabis-related magazines "behind the counter in establishments where persons under twenty-one years of age are present," traditionally the vaunted location where Hustler and other adult magazines dwell in clear plastic wrapping.

Arguing the measure illegally restricts content and violates their First Amendment rights, High Times magazine, joined by The Hemp Connoisseur and The Daily Doobie (no, really...) rolled into federal court seeking an injunction, according to a report by the Associated  Press. Other pot regs approved by Gov. Hickenlooper would ban cartoon characters and like images from being used in advertising that might influence children to ensure marijuana isn't marketed to minors.

Counsel for the magazines correctly noted that Amendment 64 elevated marijuana to the same level of legality as alcohol and that access to magazines such as Food & Wine is not restricted. Colorado has 20 days in which to respond to the suit.

Never one to cast stoners, "TUOL" generally approves of First-Amendment boosting suits, but is better-versed in grass roots movements than in movements rooted in grass.

Texas Solons Send Gov. Perry Libel Mitigation Bill

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Texas lawmakers this week voted 148-0 to approve H.B. 1759, the Defamation Mitigation Act, a measure backed by publishers and the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, the Associated Press reported.

The Senate-amended bill swept through the House and is headed to Gov. Rick Perry's desk for his signature. The measure is intended "to provide a method for a person who has been defamed by a publication or broadcast to mitigate any perceived damage or injury." 

The bill requires the media outlet in question to publish a timely correction as conspicuous as the original offending speech. The measure puts a ceiling on the amount of damages recoverable for non-malicious errors and prevents a plaintiff from receiving punitive damages unless the plaintiff demands a retraction by the media defendant within 90 days of the allegedly defamatory speech.

WaPo: DOJ Tracked Fox News Reporter in North Korea Leak Probe

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The furor over the U.S. Department of Justice subpoena of the phone records of Associated Press reporters and bureaus (see "TUOL" post 5/14/13) has yet to abate, but in a story yesterday that is sure raise the concern of journalists and free press advocates, the Washington Post reported that the DOJ zeroed in on a Fox News correspondent in its probe and subsequent charges against government adviser Stephen Jin-Woo Kim in 2010 for allegedly disclosing national defense information concerning North Korea.

Kim's trial arising from the alleged leak of classified information in 2009, regarding possible nuclear tests by North Korea in response to U.N. sanctions may go forward in 2014, but in its review of  affidavits and other court documents and an interview with Kim's attorney, the Sunday Washington Post story disclosed DOJ's purported actions against James Rosen, a Fox Washington correspondent, who did a story in June 2009, about U.S. intelligence officers warning about reprisals from North Korea.

The Post story claims DOJ employed security badge access records to monitor Rosen's visits to and from the State Department and obtained a search warrant to review Rosen's emails as part of its investigation of Kim.

Although at present, there is no federal shield law and the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment does not create a reporter's privilege regarding confidential sources, government has generally subpoenaed reporters as a last resort when unable to obtain vital information through other means, and traditionally has negotiated with the news media over the release of confidential information.

This blog has railed about the threat to the First Amendment and the "chilling effect" on the marketplace of ideas that would result from sources not speaking to reporters out of fear of being exposed by the government. The staff of "TUOL" is resisting its glib instinct to respond to the WaPo story by noting that because Fox News is involved, no journalist is being threatened.

Rather, "TUOL" will join the chorus lamenting a DOJ that is running amok in its pursuit of "leakers" at the expense of freedom of speech and of the press, the cornerstone of American society, and advises President (and former Constitutional Law Professor) Barack Obama to bone-up on his First Amendment lecture notes.

Ex-Playboy Bunny Gets Nothing Off Her Rocker: Judge Tosses Libel Suit

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In Jane Doe v. Sammy Hagar (Case No. 6:2011-cv-02067), United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa Judge Linda A. Reade last week granted summary judgment in favor of the one-time Van Halen vocalist, dismissing a defamation suit brought by a former Playboy bunny who alleged she was libeled by statements in the 65-year-old Hagar's 2011 memoir, Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock.

As reported by the Associated Press, the plaintiff, a Waterloo, Iowa, woman identified only as Jane Doe, alleged she became pregnant with Hagar's child in 1988 after an affair she had with The Red Rocker in the '80s. The child died shortly after birth in 1989.

In his memoir, Hagar denied being the father of the child and accused the woman of trying to extort money from him. Judge Reade said the plaintiff was unable to prove she suffered damages because of the purported offending statement in the memoir and that a key element of a defamation claim--that the false statement be of or concerning the plaintiff--was not satisfied because Hagar did not name her in his book.

Hagar's career as a solo performer and as the lead vocalist for Van Halen after David Lee Roth left the band, boasts several hits, including Little White Lie and Your Love is Driving Me Crazy.

UPDATE: Hawaii Solons' Revised Shield Law Turn Back on New Media

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Hawaii, the last state to join the Union 54 years ago, has taken a step backward, both technologically and as regards press freedom.

The Media Council of Hawaii ("MCH") has written to state legislators, urging them to reject H.B. 622, the revised, but weakened, proposed shield law that would supplant Hawaii Rev. Stat. sec. 621 that expires in June. With Sen. Cynthia Thielen the lone dissenting vote, lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary & Labor Committee last Friday approved a compromise bill that would make the shield law permanent, but would no longer protect "nontraditional journalists," according to an Associated Press article.

The present law protecting against compelled disclosure of confidential information and sources to authorities shields both traditional print journalists and new media, including bloggers. H.B. 622, backed by Judiciary & Labor Committee Chair Clayton Hee and Hawaii Atty. Gen. David Louie, however, would not cover digital media or free newspapers and magazines.

Critics of the shield law enacted in 2008 say the statute was too vaguely worded and impeded law enforcement, despite its inapplicability in felony and defamation cases (see "TUOL" post 4/4/13). H.B. 622, in contrast, would further be subject to exceptions in civil cases and potential felonies and serious crimes in which someone sustains unlawful injury, according to the AP article. Sen. Thielen, MCH and other media groups wanted to make the current shield law permanent, but otherwise leave its protections unaltered.

HB 622 awaits a vote by the full House & Senate.

Google Makes Nice to European Union

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Mountain View, Calif.-based Internet search engine behemoth Google, Inc., this week extended an olive branch to the European Union, offering a proposal to allay antitrust concerns, the Associated Press reported.

According to the AP article, Google proposed clearly labeling search results so that European users could differentiate between Google-sponsored search results and natural search results. The 27-nation EU Commission said Google also would display competitors' links alongside its own YouTube and Google Maps services.

The EU has been a thorn in Google's side for more than three years, investigating the company's potential abuse of its dominant market position in the Internet search field (see "TUOL" post 7/7/10).

Advance Publications Still in Retreat

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After slashing 20 jobs last January, the Advance Publications-owned (Easton, Pa.) Express-Times has eliminated another dozen full-time slots, the Associated Press reports.

The daily's Publisher and President, Lou Stancampiano, relayed the discouraging news comes as the paper eliminates its production department, shifting the printing duties to the Staten Island Advance, which will truck the daily to the Express-Times facility. The paper will continue to publish daily for now, Stancampiano confirmed.

The Newhouse family-owned Advance Publications newspapers, including the (Newark, N.J.) Star-Ledger, went through a round of massive layoffs in January in the face of withering circulation and shrinking ad revenues (see "TUOL" post 1/18/13).

Court Strikes Down Portion of Argentine Media Law on Divestiture

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Argentina's President, Cristina Fernandez, 60, suffered a setback last week in her five-year battle with the South American nation's largest media conglomerate, Grupo Clarin SA, after a federal appeals court struck down a portion of a media law concerning divestiture as unconstitutional.

According to reports by the Buenos Aires Herald, Associated Press and Telegeography.com blog, the government plans to appeal to the Supreme Court the ruling that Articles 45 and 48 of the media law were unconstitutional. The former limits cable network ownership and the latter limits "unlawful concentration practices."

Grupo Clarin's media holdings include four tv stations, 10 radio stations, 240 cable tv operators and ISPs, and Argentina's largest daily newspaper, Clarin (see "TUOL" posts 12/10/12 & 10/6/10). President Fernandez has long railed against what she perceives to be the monopoly power of  Grupo Clarin, which, not surprisingly, has been critical of her regime. But, according to the Buenos Aires Herald article, the Civil and Commercial Chamber found portions of the country's media law arbitrarily limited the media company's right to hold multiple broadcast and cable tv licenses.

Fernandez is pressing Argentina's Congress to enact legislation that would make it harder to obtain judicial injunctions.

Actress' Suit Against IMDb One for the Ages

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Hollywood's obsession with youthful screen stars is best reflected by the probably apocryphal tale of the journalist who once wired legendary actor Cary Grant: "How old Cary Grant?" to which he replied: "Old Cary Grant fine. How you?"

Age was no laughing matter to actress Huong Hoang, whose stage name, Junie Hoang, can be found in the credits of celluloid classics, including Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver (2011) and Hoodrats 2: Hoodrat Warriors (2008). Last week, according to the Associated Press, a United States District Court for the Western District of Washington jury rejected her breach of contract claim in Hoang v. Amazon.com, Inc. & IMDb.com, Inc. (Case No. C11-1709(MJP)).

Before the trial began, the presiding judge granted the summary judgment motion of defendant Amazon, the parent company of  the Internet Movie Database(IMDb) Web site, allowing it to get out of the case. Hoang initially sought $1 million damages against IMDb in her complaint, which included counts of breach of contract and violation of Washington's Privacy Act [RCW 9.73 et seq.) and Consumer Protection Act [RCW 19.86.020], for publishing her actual age in her profile.

The 41-year-old Houston native originally listed her birthdate as 1978, instead of 1971, because she claimed she was always cast in younger roles, according to the AP story. IMDb refused her request not to list a birth year at all unless she could prove the original date listed was incorrect. The defendant ultimately performed a public records search using her birth name and listed the 1971 birthdate on her account profile, despite her protestations.

She alleged in her complaint that acting roles were few and far-between once her actual age appeared on the site, despite her obviously sterling resume. She sued for breach of contract, alleging the defendant violated its privacy terms by mining her account data. The defendant countered that it had a First Amendment right to publish the information and that she had failed to show any damages sustained as a result of the listing of her birth year as 1971. The jury apparently agreed.

IMDb lists more than 2 million pages of data about tv, movies and entertainment in its searchable database, according to the AP story. Hoang should not give up hope--maybe she can fill the void in mature roles left by Judi Dench's decision to curtail her movie appearances to concentrate on theater.

Costume Bawl: Times Sq. Furrry Panhandlers Pose 1st Amendment Problem

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Times Square street performers cloaked in familiar costumes and the First Amendment are upsetting tourists and unflappable New Yorkers with aggressive panhandling and antisocial behavior, the Associated Press reports.

Dora the Explorer, the Statue of Liberty, Super Mario, Mickey & Minnie Mouse, Elmo, Cookie Monster and Spider-Man are among the Times Square denizens who pose for photos in hopes of receiving payment. Unfortunately, according to the AP story, in recent months a Cookie-Monster costume-wearing 33-year-old Osvaldo Quiroz-Lopez was charged with assault, child endangerment and aggressive begging for allegedly pushing a two year old, while someone dressed as Elmo was not tickled when he was ordered to perform two days of community service for disorderly conduct that included an anti-Semitic rant. Who knew Sesame Street was such a tough neighborhood?

City councilors are hamstrung because they perceive folks merely walking around in a costume in Times Square as First Amendment protected activity. Indeed, court challenges halted police who were ticketing street performers who lacked proper tax documentation. Police can issue tickets carrying $60 fines if the furry posers block traffic, sell merchandise without a permit or demand money for being photographed, so there is some recourse if, for instance, Mickey & Minnie start acting Goofy. Still, any enforcement must be content-neutral to withstand a First Amendment challenge.

Neither Disney nor Sesame Street has given its blessings to the street performers for donning costumes that resemble the characters whose ownership rights belong to the companies, but as a practical matter,  mobilizing big-ticket law firms to round up the decidedly not deep-pocketed street performers for a trademark infringement suit isn't economically feasible.

The hard-working staff of "TUOL" grew up in the metropolitan New York area and has seen characters a lot scarier than Dora the Explorer roaming around in Times Square.  As the saying goes, freedom of speech comes at accost.

UPDATE: Will Aloha State Solons Modify Shield Law?

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Hawaii's Senate Judiciary Committee today is expected to decide whether to modify the state's shield law [Hawaii Rev. Stat. sec. 621] that is scheduled to expire in June, the Associated Press reports.

Enacted in 2008, the statute, with exceptions, protects traditional and non-traditional reporters (e.g., bloggers) from having to disclose confidential sources and information to authorities (see "TUOL" posts 2/2/11, 5/10/09). Attorney General David Louie is leading the charge to refine the statute, according to the AP story, so as not to cover bloggers, and to grant law enforcement officers access to reporters' unpublished information.

On the other end of the spectrum, a coalition of 16 media groups cleverly calling itself The Hawaii Shield Law Coalition wants to make the statute permanent, but otherwise argues its provisions should be untouched. Already, the Hawaii House has proposed subjecting journalists to subpoenas in civil cases and cases in which people or animals are unlawfully harmed. Presently, cases involving felonies or defamation are an exception to the statute under which journalists may be compelled to divulge notes or identities of unnamed sources.

Forty states and the District of Columbia have some form of shield law in place, though "TUOL"'s home base, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is not among them, so don't tell us your secrets.

AP Stylebook Drops Use of 'Illegal Immigrant'

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The Associated Press Stylebook no longer will use the hot-button term illegal immigrant, the wire service announced this week.

The Huffington Post (which favors undocumented immigrant) reported that The New York Times and Washington Post have yet to decide whether to follow other newspapers nationwide in adopting AP's decision to avoid the term.

The AP Stylebook is widely used by all branches of the news media, so its policy change may have an impact on the national dialogue concerning immigration reform.

It's not likely to affect Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska.) who recently attracted unwanted attention to the GOP in an interview in which he reminisced about his family's ranch hiring wetbacks.  With a blogosphere eager to lambaste whatever term is used in public discussion of immigration reform, don't be surprised if visa-challenged immigrant and specially visiting immigrant enter the lexicon.

City Councilors' City-Related Emails & Texts Public Records, Calif. Judge Rules

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The San Jose City Council  at its meeting next week will address whether to appeal a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge's ruling this month that the councilors' city business-related emails and text messages from their personal accounts must be disclosed under California's Public Records Act ("CPRA") [Govt. Code Secs. 6250-6276.48].

According to an Associated Press article, the ruling by the presiding judge in a lawsuit brought by environmentalist Ted Smith subjects the councilors and other elected and public officials to CPRA, meaning that they must retain records of city business-related communications on their private devices and produce the data on request. Under Sec. 6252(e) of the Act, records include all public business-related communications, "regardless of physical form or characteristics, including any writing, picture, sound or symbol, whether paper...magnetic or other media." The CPRA includes electronic records as subject to public review (Sec. 6253.9(a)(g)).

San Jose officials are worried the judge's decision could extend to the personal email and social media accounts of the city's more than 5,000 employees, which would compliance with CPRA onerous and pose invasion of privacy problems.

The AP article reported that 26 states consider private emails about government-related affairs public records subject to disclosure.

UPDATE: Federal Judge: Electronic Clipping Service Infringed on AP Copyright

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In The Associated Press v. Meltwater U.S. Holdings, Inc. (Case No. 12-cv-1087), United States District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Denise Cote this week granted AP summary judgment, holding that the defendant news aggregator infringed on the wire service's copyrighted material without paying licensing fees.

AP last year filed suit against SanFrancisco-based Meltwater, a subscriber-only electronic clipping service whose corporate clients track reporting about themselves and their industries, alleging copyright infringement and hot news misappropriation. (See "TUOL" post 2/16/12.) According to a Reuters wire service story, Judge Cote ruled for AP and denied Meltwater's summary judgment motion, with one exception, in her decision, which has not yet been released to the public.