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Monday, March 28, 2011

Strib reports, Johnny Northside has a friend --- Coverage of the amicus petition filed by a professional journalist chapter to participate in the post-trial motions phase of Moore v. Hoff.

Much has been written on Crabgrass concerning the litigation. This Google gives two links.

Strib, here, reports the latest, per this extended excerpt:

Professional journalists back north Minneapolis blogger -- Society of Professional Journalists says a judgment against John Hoff, aka "Johnny Northside," could affect all reporters.

By ABBY SIMONS, Star Tribune - Last update: March 25, 2011 - 8:03 PM


The Minnesota chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists asked this week to have its "friend of the court" brief considered when Hennepin County District Judge Denise Reilly considers whether to throw out the jury's March 11 verdict in favor of Jerry Moore.

SPJ-MN attorneys argue that the 100-year-old organization representing print and broadcast journalists has a public interest in the case because the jury's verdict suggests that journalists or anyone else could be held liable for truthful statements they post online. Such a standard "could impair the free flow of information and vigorous debate on public issues," the organization argued.

The organization has a "significant continuing interest in ensuring that Minnesota courts at every level do not apply such a rule," the brief said.

The jury's verdict noted that although Hoff truthfully blogged that Moore was linked to a fraudulent mortgage in the city's North Side, the blog post interfered with Moore's employment at the University of Minnesota.

The U fired Moore the day after the post went online. [...]

Hoff's blog, "The Adventures of Johnny Northside," focuses on north Minneapolis and has hundreds of readers daily.

[...] Hoff said Friday that he is "honored and humbled" that SPJ stood to defend him, even before his own attorney filed a brief contesting the verdict.

"I think they realize bloggers and mainstream journalists are all part of the same media ecosystem, and an injury to one is an injury to all," he wrote in an e-mail. "If we can't tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may, how do we even HAVE a First Amendment in this country?"

Moore's attorney, Jill Clark, did not respond to a request for comment.

SPJ-MN President Sarah Bauer said the organization's board agreed that Hoff's case "was an important issue to support."

Community attention to this important free speech situation is essential; with that attention expanding online as far away as California, and a law professors' blog; this link.

The basic legal issue is, if you report something truthful to another person, how can that give rise to a tort level of "interference" in the fiscal affairs and expectancies of others about whom you are reporting? And, how can that be a basis for a damages award for unjustified emotional distress.

Beyond, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me," anyone distressed by publishing of the truth about himself or herself can certainly be uncomfortable if the truth hurts, but that should not be cause to recover thousands of dollars.

Who you are is based on what you've done, and if a true past historical situation is published, and in particular if you are a public person, the best answer for having reasonable levels of free speech in the nation might not be to reward the filing of a lawsuit with a five figure damages award given just because someone complains that the truth hurts.

"You made your own bed now sleep in it," is the old saying fitting that kind of complaint.

Public policy favoring First Amendment speech and publishing might, (I believe should), cut against such litigation as having a chilling effect upon others who might want to speak out, when believing it wholly proper, and thinking that telling the truth is a defense against being jumped with a threatening lawsuit.

Avoiding chilling effects on socially proper (indeed helpful) speech is proper policy, regardless of what a jury might have said and done, particularly if inflamed by prejudice and passion winning out over deliberate and wise juror reasoning.

BOTTOM LINE ON THE INTERVENTION PETITION: The journalism society's board deserves credit for making a decision in their own best intersts, but WELL beyond that, in the best interests of civil society and citizens' right (and need) to know true facts and news. Social and political decisions cannot be wisely made by an ill-informed or misled public. We can each find things in news reporting to carp about, but without it, how can a voting process be at all sound, and how, as in this Moore v. Hoff situation, can a government agency be made by the public to function wisely if citizens are denied truthful reporting of things the agency has been doing?