The Price of the Free Press
A few weeks ago there was an uproar in blogville about the Sacramento Bee deciding it would start editing the recall blog by columnist Dan Weintraub. Interesting topic, but I lose interest when both sides take the holier-than-thou approach and refuse to concede the other side may have valid points. (The latest furor is over some NY Times reporter saying condescending things about blogs and bloggers saying dismissive things about NYT reporters. Yawn.)

My take is quite simply that newspapers should experiment with blogs and user-generated content. But bloggers, come on, they have huge legal liability issues the average blogger has been able to ignore thus far. (The exception is Drudge and his expensive scuffle with Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal.)

But if Weintraub libels someone on his blog - guess who gets sued? His newspaper. If that blog hasn't even been edited, is a court going to call that reckless? I think media attorneys have every reason to be worried about the implications until there is precedent. That's not to say newspapers shouldn't do it at all, but you have to understand they have reason to be cautious.

We should be grateful for the news outfits who are sticking their neck out for change. Conde Nast and Jeff Jarvis are doing that with Advance.net and a small unpaid stable of "citizen bloggers," according to this Steve Outing article in Editor & Publisher. Here's how they handle libel:

(Advance seems to be counting on its liability being minimal should a citizen blogger libel someone. Its argument would be that a citizen blogger saying something harmful is akin to a discussion forum participant saying the same thing -- or a talk radio show listener blurting out something slanderous during a call-in segment.)

Note that he says "seems to be counting on." Once it's safe in the legal arena, you will indeed see loads of "citizen bloggers" at media companies big and small.
- posted by Amy @ 10/17/2003 10:56:00 AM