What were you thinking? A survey of journalists who were sued for invasion of privacy

Journalism and Mass Communication Quaterly

Volumn 75, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 378-393

  Voakes, Paul S ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0040094157     PISSN: 10776990     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/107769909807500212     Document Type: Article

References (33)

1. David Pritchard, "A New Paradigm for Legal Research in Mass Communication," Communications and the Law 8 (August 1986): 51-67.
2. See, for example, Douglas A. Anderson and Marianne Murdock, "Effects of Communication Law Decisions on Daily Newspaper Editors," Journalism Quarterly 58 (winter 1981): 525-28, 534; and Ben Silver and James Bow, "Effects of Herbert v. Lando on the News Process," Journalism Quarterly 60 (spring 1983): 115-18.
3. See, for example, Douglas A. Anderson and Marianne Murdock, "Effects of Communication Law Decisions on Daily Newspaper Editors," Journalism Quarterly 58 (winter 1981): 525-28, 534; and Ben Silver and James Bow, "Effects of Herbert v. Lando on the News Process," Journalism Quarterly 60 (spring 1983): 115-18.
4. See, for example, Rita Wolf, Tommy Thomason, and Paul LaRocque, "The Right to Know vs. The Right of Privacy: Newspaper Identification of Crime Victims," Journalism Quarterly 64 (summer-autumn 1987): 503-507.
5. See, for example, Bruce Garrison and Sigman Splichal, "Reporting on Private Affairs of Candidates: A Study of Newspaper Practices," Journal of Mass Media Ethics 9 (1994): 169-83.
6. Restatement (Second) of Torts, Section 652D (1977).
7. Restatement (Second) of Torts, Section 652B.
8. Restatement (Second) of Torts, Section 562E.
9. Robert Wyatt, Free Expression and the American Public (Murfreesboro, TN: Middle Tennessee State University, 1991).
10. Debra Gersh, "Heightened Sensitivity: SPJ Survey Shows News Media are Getting More Sensitive to the Privacy Concerns of Their Audiences," Editor & Publisher, 9 February 1991, 36.
11. David H. Weaver and G. Cleveland Wilhoit, The American Journalist in the 1990s: U.S. News People at the End of an Era (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996).
12. Mark Galanter, "The Future of Law and Social Science Research," North Carolina Law Review 52 (October 1974): 1060-1089.
13. Jerome H. Skolnick, "Coercion to Virtue: The Enforcement of Morals," Southern California Law Review 41 (summer 1968): 588-626. See also Stewart Macaulay, "Law and Behavioral Science: Is There Any There There?" Law & Policy 6 (April 1984): 149-87.
14. Jerome H. Skolnick, "Coercion to Virtue: The Enforcement of Morals," Southern California Law Review 41 (summer 1968): 588-626. See also Stewart Macaulay, "Law and Behavioral Science: Is There Any There There?" Law & Policy 6 (April 1984): 149-87.
15. Toni Makkai and John Braithwaite, "The Dialectics of Corporate Deterrence," Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 31 (spring 1994): 347-73.
16. Jerry Wiley, "The Impact of Judicial Decisions on Professional Conduct: An Empirical Study," Southern California Law Review 55 (January 1981): 345-89.
17. Daniel J. Givelber, William J. Bowers, and Carolyn L. Blitch, "Tarasoff, Myth and Reality: An Empriical Study of Private Law in Action," Wisconsin Law Review (winter 1984): 443-97.
18. Daniel W. Shuman, "The Psychology of Deterrence on Tort Law," University of Kansas Law Review 42 (fall 1993): 115-68.
19. Tom R. Tyler, Why People Obey the Law (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).
20. Robert L. Rabin, "Deterrence and the Tort System," in Sanctions and Rewards in the Legal System: A Multidisciplinary Approach, ed. M. L. Friedland (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), 79-94.
21. Holly S. Stocking and Paget Gross, How Do Journalists Think? (Bloomington, IN: ERIC, 1989).
22. Shuman, "The Psychology of Deterrence in Tort Law," 161.
23. Pamela J. Shoemaker and Stephen D. Reese, Mediating the Message: Theories of Influences on Mass Media Content (White Plains, NY: Longman, 1996).
24. The number of invasion of privacy suits filed during this period was no doubt higher than 84, but because results of state courts of original jurisdiction are not routinely available in national publications or databases, the cases found for this study were mostly appellate cases. The few cases that were discovered at the original-jurisdiction level had been found in the trade press (usually because of some unusual feature in the case).
25. Attempts to contact an appropriate respondent failed for a variety of reasons: Some had left their news organizations, and attempts to trace them failed; some news organizations no longer existed; others failed to respond either to letters or to repeated telephone messages.
26. Refusals were usually attributable to one of three reasons: the journalists could not be satisfied that academic researchers could protect their identities; they understood that the case might still be pending and had been advised by an attorney not to discuss it; or they simply did not want to revisit the unpleasantries of the suit, which one refusing subject described as "the worst nightmare of my life."
27. The protocol followed this sequence: Subjects were first asked to discuss their understanding of the recent history of the lawsuit (as a "warmup" question) and then asked to recall the time immediately before the broadcast or publication of the material that led to the suit. They were asked to what extent they had thought their story subjects would react to the publication, to what extent they had thought the story raised questions of law, and to what extent they had thought the story raised questions of ethics. Each question was answered numerically (on a scale from 1 to 10) and followed up with an open-ended explanation of each numerical answer. Respondents were then asked to rate numerically the salience of the indicators of the social influences in the Shoemaker-Reese model. The protocol also included demographic items such as age, education, gender, and size of media organization.
28. Randall P. Bezanson, Gilbert Cranberg, and John Soloski, Libel Law and the Press: Myth and Reality (New York: The Free Press, 1987).
29. The remaining 4.5% of the cases represented some combination of defamation and privacy torts, with no single area of law dominating the resolution.
30. The following items were classified as normative in nature: "I think I relied on my own religious or moral upbringing for guidance" (Individual channel of influence); "I was relying on the personal values and beliefs that I bring to my work, regardless of whatever rules we're expected to follow" (Individual); "I remember wanting to consult with a co-worker or an editor before proceeding on the story" (Small Group); "I remember thinking about whether what I was doing was journalistically professional or unprofessional" (Occupation); "I remember wondering what the subject of the story would think when he or she first saw it" (Extramedia). The following items were classified as instrumentalist in nature: "I remember thinking about what my co-workers would do, or had done, in a similar situation" (Small Group); "I remember thinking about whether this kind of story fit, or didn't fit, the image of our particular news organization" (Organization); "I remember thinking about our company's policy on situations like this" (Organization); "I remember thinking about whether these are the kinds of stories that would raise our profile, or get our news organization talked about more" (Competition); "I remember thinking about whether we needed stories like these to stay ahead of our competition" (Competition); "I remember trying to find out whether there was anything about this in our profession's codes of ethics" (Occupation); "I remember wondering what my other sources and contacts would think when they first saw the story" (Extramedia); "I remember wondering if we would get sued for any reason because of this story" (Legal); "I remember thinking about whether my company would stand behind me if any legal trouble arose from this story" (Legal); "I remember trying to find out whether there was any recent court decision or law concerning this situation" (Legal); "I remember trying to recall facts from media law classes or media law seminars I have attended" (Legal).
31. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Belknap Press, 1971).
32. Don R. Pember, Mass Media Law (Madison, WI: Brown & Benchmark Publishers, 1997), 262, 270.
33. Bezanson, Cranberg, and Soloski, Libel Law and the Press, 116.