Law and Ethics in Online Journalism

Ethics, law and libel. Three terms we see often in journalism of all sorts; in fact, many colleges have j-courses devoted entirely to ethics, law and/or libel. But in those courses -- or at least the ones I've experienced at the University of Connecticut -- the focus is largely upon print or photo journalism. There isn't much emphasis on the Web.

That's where James C. Foust's "Online Journalism" textbook comes in. He specifically discusses "Legal and Ethical Issues" in chapter 10 of the print version of his book. I read the chapter and I think I'll try to tackle the three activities on p. 235.

Activity 10.1 focuses upon user agreements. I've linked The Chronicle of Higher Education's user agreement here. A user agreement, sometimes seen as "Terms of Use," is the contract between a Web site and its users. It's not something that jumps out at a netizen normally, but virtually all sites have a link to such an agreement somewhere.

For the purposes of Foust's question, I'm going to center on ESPN's Web site. Listed under "Terms of Use" at the bottom of the homepage, it links to Disney's user agreement because of the merger between the two powerhouses.

In regards to copyright, it says: "Notifications of claimed copyright infringement must be sent to Service Provider's Designated Agent," which in this case is WDIG. In terms of linking it says users may be directed to other sites without ESPN's knowledge, at which point they are not liable. As for postings made by users, they make the reader aware of the fact that anything they post may be made available via the Internet and search engines. A fair warning.

These examples would stand up to court challenges because ESPN/Disney is thorough in its definition and rules about copyright, linking and postings. Legally, nothing imperative is left unsaid.

Moving forward, let's take a closer look at linking. There are a few different types of linking. Deep linking is, "bypassing a Web site's home page or other introductory material by linking to a page 'deep' within the site's structure," according to Foust (226). Inline linking is done through the use of HTML and URL's, while associative linking concerns the reputation of the sites that are connected to one another.

In deep linking, the rights that need to be balanced are those of the Web site's central producer and those reaping the benefits of a click on a deep link. Inline linking calls for a balance between the engineers/technicians and site operators, while associative linking requires a balance between the two sites that are linked -- regardless of whether or not the linking is accidental or contrived.

Finally, for activity 10.3 I'll head to CNN.com. I must admit this was Foust's suggestion in his textbook. I'm going to take a look at some of the specific photo credits and get a general idea as to how many copyright owners are out there. Are they far and few between, or plentiful? Let's see...

On the home page I see one credited to Getty Images. In the "World" section I see another to Getty Images. On the "U.S." page there's credit to Kristi Keck of CNN, while mostly all of the sports pictures were credited to SIpictures.com. Of course CNN and Sports Illustrated have merged, as well.

Overall it seems that the number of copyright owners is small. Almost like an oligopoly in the industry.

All this being said, the point is that ethics, law and libel are very much a part of the online journalism realm. As much so, perhaps, as the world of print and photo journalism.