Bloggers getting themselves in trouble with libel

Seattle Times - Words matter. Words are malleable and can be used to illuminate or obscure. Words can hurt. Because of the heaviness of words, newspaper journalists take seriously the power we wield through our publications.

Journalists spend an inordinate amount of time contemplating and discussing what to write and how to write it. This contemplating and discussing encompasses everything from topics, to word choice, to what is appropriate to be spun off the press.

Journalists have the right to write pointed critiques or damaging stories. This is never done lightly and must be backed up with fact. What we do can alter somebody's life for better or worse. Almost every professional journalist is careful not to abuse this right of free speech.

There is nothing wrong with pushing the limits of the First Amendment, but there is a line where free speech can go too far and real damage is done. Bloggers are writing past this line and finding themselves in trouble.

The common refrain from bloggers is that they have a right to say what they want, especially if it is their opinion. Whatever that opinion is, it needs to be grounded in fact. If it is not then the writer runs the risk of being sued for libel, which is a false statement that damages a person's reputation.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said she is receiving more and more calls from bloggers.

"They don't seem to understand that if you are going to spout off, that spouting off has consequences," she said.

The average blogger doesn't have the same understanding as trained journalists do of the difference between fact and opinion and the use of "red flag words."

"As more citizens are out there blogging away many of them don't have a grasp of what the law is," Dalglish said.http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2009716909_ryan23.html

Ads Follow Web Users, and Get More Personal

The New York Times - For all the concern and uproar over online privacy, marketers and data companies have always known much more about consumers’ offline lives, like income, credit score, home ownership, even what car they drive and whether they have a hunting license. Recently, some of these companies have started connecting this mountain of information to consumers’ browsers.

The result is a sea change in the way consumers encounter the Web. Not only will people see customized advertising, they will see different versions of Web sites from other consumers and even receive different discount offers while shopping — all based on information from their offline history. Two women in adjoining offices could go to the same cosmetic site, but one might see a $300 Missoni perfume, the other the house-brand lipstick on sale for $2.

The technology that makes the connection is nothing new — it is a tiny piece of code called a cookie that is placed on a hard drive. But the information it holds is. And it is all done invisibly.

Advertisers and marketers say this specificity is useful, taking out the guesswork involved in online-only profiling, and showing products to the people most likely to be interested. Retailers including Gap and Victoria’s Secret are using this tactic.

But consumer advocates say such unseen tracking is troubling. On the old Internet, nobody knew you were a dog. On the new targeted Internet, they now know what kind of dog you are, your favorite leash color, the last time you had fleas and the date you were neutered.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/business/media/31privacy.html

Newspaper Apologizes for Inventing a Scandal

The New York Times - OTTAWA — “It’s a Scandal,” an exceptionally large front-page headline in The Saint John Telegraph-Journal proclaimed last month above an article about what the prime minister of Canada did, or did not, do with a communion wafer.

Last week, the wafer issue resurfaced on the front page of the newspaper. But this time as more of an embarrassment. In a lengthy correction, the New Brunswick newspaper said that “there was no credible support” for the article’s claim that Prime Minister Stephen Harper had pocketed the wafer during the funeral of a former governor-general or that a Roman Catholic priest was demanding an explanation from his office.

Unusually, the newspaper apologized not just to Mr. Harper but also to the two reporters whose names appeared on the article, adding that the errors were introduced “in the editing process” and were included “without the knowledge ofthe reporters and without any credible support for them.”

The fallout did not stop there. Shortly after the article appeared, the publisher, a member of New Brunswick’s most powerful family whose holdings include The Telegraph-Journal, and the newspaper’s editor were removed from their jobs.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/business/media/03paper.html