Colorado has repealed its criminal libel law, under which a person who questioned someone's "honesty, integrity, virtue or reputation" could be sent to prison.Gov.
Tag: libel
Scottie Pippen libel suit tests colleges’ responsibility for content of student-authored blogs
Scottie Pippen, the seven-time all-star who played on six NBA championship teams, wants the world to know that he is not broke.
Colo. legislator wants to repeal state’s criminal libel statute in response to Howling Pig saga
A Senate bill in Colorado has been proposed in hopes of repealing the state’s criminal libel law.The current law defines criminal libel as a class six felony.
Former Colo. student publisher reaches $425k settlement with prosecutor, ending Howling Pig legal marathon
After an eight-year legal fight, the former student and publisher of the Howling Pig has reached a $425,000 settlement with former prosecutor Susan Knox.Thomas Mink was a student at the University of Northern Colorado in 2003 when police searched his home and confiscated his computer.
SUNY-Brockport editor wins SPJ recognition for weathering intimidation
A New York college editor who kept up his fight for public records from a hostile student government that threatened him with legal action has won a national First Amendment prize recognizing his tenacity.The Society of Professional Journalists named Bill Matthias the winner of its annual Robert D.G.
Newspaper asks judge to set aside $5 million libel award to student
VIRGINIA — A Chesapeake Circuit Court jury handed down a $5 million judgment Feb.
Back to School Checklist: Evaluating your staff’s ‘media-law radar’
For better or worse, knowledge of the law continues to be an ever-growing part of the skill set required of all journalists, including students.One fairly quick -- and mostly painless/sometimes entertaining -- way to check how much your students/staff know about media law as they head back to the newsroom is to direct them to the SPLC's Test Your Knowledge of Student Media Law quiz series.
Preventing yearbook vandalism
As spring delivery yearbooks begin to arrive on high school campuses across the country, there will be — as happens every year — a tiny few that include unpleasant surprises (and it is a very “tiny” number relative to the thousands of yearbooks that will arrive exactly as expected.) That’s because every year, it’s discovered that someone snuck some prank entry into the yearbook files — often after the pages had been signed off on by editors but before being sent to the printer, but sometimes simply by being sneaky and slipping it past the editors.Among those we’ve seen over the years: doctoring classmates' names, substituting an unflattering photo, inserted “coded” messages or profanity, rewriting a student bio or adding racist comments.Often the change is meant as a joke, but while their intent might have been to have some fun, there is nothing funny about the practice.
Story about student who masturbated in college classroom prompts libel threat against Hawaii university paper
A student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa recently threatened his school’s student newspaper, the Ka Leo O Hawaii (The Voice of Hawaii), with a libel lawsuit.
‘Tweet’ brings legal heat
Much has been said and written about the disarming casualness with which people converse over the Internet, sometimes oblivious to the breadth of their audience.