firstamendment

Newspapers are not dead yet. But their hoped-for rebirth as Internet ventures requires a new strategy to create value in their journalism. Proposal: Papers should agree to 24-hour delay in release of their content, free, on web. By Peter Scheer Reports of the imminent death of newspapers–which lately have become a staple in the very newspapers that are said to be flat-lining–are, as a good print journalist once said, greatly exaggerated. Newspapers, especially big metropolitan

Your Turn A Commentary on the Hewlett-Packard leak-plugging scandal, appearing in the last Flash, generated a number of letters and emails. The Commentary, “FREE THE HEWLETT-PACKARD 5!” argued that corporations must be allowed to investigate suspected leakers in their own ranks so that the press can remain free to publish leaks, and also urged caution in criminalizing “pretexting” because of its similarity to some types of investigative reporting. A selection of responses begins with the

Journalistic Standards v. California Labor Code By Nick Rahaim The Daily Triplicate of California’s remote Del Norte County has lost the first round in a law suit pitting a reporter’s desire to engage in local politics with the newspaper’s enforcement of ethics standards that forbid the mixing of journalism and political activities. The Daily Triplicate is being sued in federal District Court by Kent Gray, a former staff reporter. Gray was fired after becoming a

FREE THE HEWLETT-PACKARD 5! Corporations must have power to police leaks internally so newspapers will remain free to publish leaks By Peter Scheer California Attorney General Bill Lockyer wasted no time in filing criminal charges against former Hewlett-Packard Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, H-P’s senior legal counsel and three outside security consultants for alleged crimes committed in the course of an over-zealous effort to plug leaks in the H-P boardroom. Lockyer’s haste has nothing to do with

The “deliberative process privilege” is dead or, at best, on life support. Here’s to pulling the plug on an FOI loophole that never should have been. By Peter Scheer The chairman of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, Bill Postmus, refuses to make public his calendar of meetings and other government events. This refusal takes no small amount of chutzpah, since Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger regularly releases his calendars, as have all other statewide elected