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Carolina court dismisses libel suit brought against Indian TV network

donal brown August 23, 2011

A North Carolina court dismissed a libel suit against an Indian television network for reporting rumors that a man pushed his pregnant wife out of a moving car. The fight grew out of a dispute over a dowry. The husband claimed that his wife had suffered brain injuries when he rolled his car after he was cut off on the freeway. His wife’s family told the Indian press the story about their daughter getting shoved

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A&A: Does Ohio law allow videotaping of council meetings?

FAC August 23, 2011

Q: I have a local AM talk radio show in Ohio. Recently, I decided to visit my local council meetings and digitally record them on my computer. This seemed to have made a certain councilman angry. My question is, that I consider the act of recording a public council meeting and then airing portions of them on my show to completely legal. Is this legal? And can I also post these recordings on the internet?

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Libel: Insurance executive files $60 million suit against Eliot Spitzer

donal brown August 22, 2011

A former insurance executive is suing former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer for a column in Slate.com on an insurance bid-rigging scandal that said the man was guilt of crimes. In fact, the executive’s conviction was thrown out of court before the column was published. The executive, William Gilman, said Spitzer was acting out of “actual malice” and that even if Spitzer never used his name, he was easily identified as the one in the

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Free press: Punishments continue as Chinese government objects to magazine content

donal brown August 22, 2011

China removed the head of a biweekly magazine and suspended its editor over publication of an interview with a Taiwanese historian. The historian was quoted saying that Sun Yat-sen was ready to cede Chinese territory to Japan in return for military help in defeating a local warlord. The historian also said the Communist Party’s history was not always factual. The Committee to Protect Journalists said a number of journalists had been punished this year for

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Student Press Law Center files amicus in suit challenging secret admissions program at U. of Illinois

donal brown August 22, 2011

With media partners the Student Press Law Center has filed an amicus brief to a federal appeals court arguing that a lower court ruled correctly in granting the Chicago Tribune access to public records about a secret University of Illinois admissions program. The university argued that the records should be withheld on grounds of “student confidentiality.” The brief reads, “For far too long, colleges and schools have been hiding behind bogus claims of ‘student privacy’

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