Chapter 22—Rights and Responsibilities

I’m glad I’m not a Legal Studies major.
Of course, as a Journalist I also have to know a couple laws that affect my job, such as the open-meeting laws or the shield laws.

Actually, I don’t think that Journalists think about their rights and responsibilities on a daily basis. It happens only when they get into conflict with the law. Yes, I’m thinking of Libel… I’m a bit worried about it, because many times libel can come from inaccurate reporting. And inaccurate reporting can come from tricky sources giving deliberately ambiguous answers.

I know that the best defense against libel is truth. But in so many cases, no one really knows what the truth is because of the way a person words something or because sources don’t give proper information (as in case of TMI). I think journalists aren’t writing defamatory articles because they are determined to ruin somebody’s reputation. It’s rather a choice between the public’s right to know and the risk that something might not be true. For example, I think I’d report on something alleged that can possibly harm many people than not warn anyone because I’m not 100% sure. But I also want to be accurate. This is just so complicated. Maybe I should try thinking less as a person and more of a professional.

Privilege: while it is good for journalists, I think this is a weapon of the government against the public. Why can a state official say things that aren’t true?

The Actual Malice Test: so, as a journalist, I can write anything about an officeholder or candidate unless I know it’s false or I’m ignorant about what the truth is. Sounds good. But again: how do I know if something is true? Just because someone says so? I have the feeling that no one is really required to tell the truth. Everyone can find some law to be protected.

And then of course the invasion of privacy: even if I finally find out something that is true, I can’t write it because it’s private. But the thing is, if I’m about to write a story on a person’s private affairs, I do it so because I think that the public is affected by it, so it should knows about it. So is it a private or a public issue? If I get to know that there’s a man with AIDS raping women in his house: do I have the right to write about it? Can I enter his private property? (Let’s say that this man is rich enough to have contacts at the local police station, so I can’t call the police. What do I do?)

I just hope I won’t have to deal with such issues later on. I feel that laws are just so ambiguous. If I think of the language used in legal issues… It’s just so hard to understand and lawyers always find a way to get around laws.