How journalists learn about mass media law.

摘要

This study found that journalists at six daily newspapers in the Midwest made little or no attempt to learn about the media law that affects their work. Instead, they relied on newsroom lawyers to inform them of potential legal problems with their work and were content to devolve responsibility in this field to the attorneys. Interviews with journalists representing different echelons of the newsroom hierarchy and counsel for all six newspapers between November 1997 and March 1998 led to these conclusions.; The results showed that the journalists took no initiative to learn about mass media law and that any update they obtained happened by chance: either they read something in The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, or a colleague happened to mention something on a legal issue. Senior journalists, those with responsibility for news content, relied almost exclusively on newsroom lawyers for legal information. Their justification for this was that there was simply too much “law” for them to get to grips with and run a paper. Further, the organizations for which the journalists worked neither demanded nor encouraged their staff to keep up to date with legal issues. In all six newsrooms there was a culture that encouraged journalists to work with lawyers when it was asked of them and to value the lawyer's arcane knowledge, without expecting individual journalists to have a robust working knowledge of legal issues themselves.; In short, this study's findings suggest that these six newspapers had made their newsroom lawyers responsible for ensuring that no breaches of legal standards appeared in print. But rather than viewing this as a take over of editorial control by the lawyers, both lawyers and journalists were adamant that the journalists were still in control because of the way lawyers were used. Senior editors called them in when they felt that a legal red flag had been raised by a story. The lawyers were then asked for advice regarding a story that had already been written, researched and was awaiting publication, therefore, the journalists were able to claim editorial control.