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Commentary

Update on Phoenix New Times jailings

It isn't often legal nightmares are resolved quickly. In fact, anything pertaining to the law tends to drag on tirelessly.

But for the two executives at Village Voice Media who spent a night in jail last week, their legal woes were abated before the weekend arrived. On Friday afternoon, I wrote about how Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin were incarcerated after they published details in the Phoenix New Times about a subpoena they received. Hours later, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, dropped all the charges against Lacey, Larkin and the paper.

Dennis Wilenchik, the special prosecutor assigned to the case, was removed from the investigation by Thomas the same day. Wilenchick has denied any wrongdoing, stating that "his investigation was not 'grossly mishandled or mismanaged,'" and he will not stand to have his reputation tarnished.

While it's not entirely clear what prompted the county attorney to drop the charges and remove Wilenchick, The Arizona Republic points out, that "Thomas' announcement came just hours after the State Bar Association confirmed that it had received multiple complaints and had launched an internal investigation into Thomas and special prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik for their actions in the New Times case and an unrelated one."

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Village Voice executives jailed in Phoenix

Just days after the House of Representatives passed the Free Flow of Information Act, The New York Times reports that two executives from Village Voice Media were arrested in Phoenix, Arizona, for revealing "grand jury secrets". Michael Lacey, the executive editor, and Jim Larkin, chief executive, were arrested at their homes after they wrote a story that revealed that the Village Voice Media company, its executives, its reporters and even the names of the readers of its website had been subpoenaed by a special prosecutor. The special prosecutor had been appointed to look into allegations that the newspaper had violated the law in publishing the home address of Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio on its website more than three years ago. The two have since been released, but the reverberations of this blatant assault on the press and of Arpaio's retaliatory behavior will likely resonate for some time. Although the original investigation stems from a column written by John Dougherty about Arpaio's real estate investments, the impetus for yesterday's arrest appears to be this week's Phoenix New Times cover story, " Breathtaking Abuse of the Constitution". In the article, Lacey and Larkin acknowledge the fact that the story may generate a legal backlash, and imply that civil disobedience had become their last option.… Read more

Journalists need a shield law, but not this bill

33 States plus the District of Columbia have some form of shield law to protect the forced disclosure of information obtained by journalists, but there are no such protections when it comes to federal court. That may be change soon, but will the law be strong enough to actually protect journalists or will its broad exceptions do more to hurt press freedoms than help them?

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Current TV launches new site

Al Gore has proven that there can be life after politics. He's written several best-selling books, received an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth, helped develop Current TV, a cable television station focused on getting young people interested in the world around them. and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last week. Seven years ago, he was running for president and since that time he's done all this.

Today Current launched a new website at Current.com that not only brings all the television content to the web, but also seeks to build a new social media platform. … Read more

League of Women Voters forbids filming of San Francisco mayoral forum

Update: After writing this blog post, I spoke to The League of Women Voters, and SFGTV and the City Attorney's office. After making these phone calls, I was assured that the public would in fact be able to videotape the debate and on Thursday night, I did see plenty of cameras in the audience. To the best of my knowledge, everybody was provided full access to the debate.

In the city of San Francisco, a dozen people are running for mayor of San Francisco. I am one of them. Most of us are serious candidates pushing real issues and innovative solutions to the city's problems though you might not think so reading the local newspapers or watching the television.

In fact, many people in San Francisco don't even know there is an election next month. Of those who do, many are unaware that Gavin Newsom, the incumbent, is not running unopposed. By all accounts the mayor is running a very quiet campaign, and has refused to participate in any candidate forums or debates. Except one.

Almost all of the candidates, including Newsom, will be taking part in a candidate forum tonight. It's sponsored by the League of Women Voters and will take place at 6:00PM in the Koret Auditorium at the main branch of the public library. The event will be taped by SFGTV, the local government television station, and according to an e-mail I received from Jolinda Sim, the Candidate Forums chair for the League of Women Voters, "no videotaping or flash photography [will be] allowed due to the fact that SFGOV TV is taping this forum for broadcast."

Given that this is a public event being held on city property and pertaining a to government election, the mere suggestion that the media not be granted full access to the event is deeply troubling. The fact that the government is actually involved in taping the forum means that the city is complicit in denying the media access. This is not only alarming, it may even be illegal.… Read more

A shield for journalists worth supporting?

I've been tracking the progress of the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007 for months. Having spent time in a federal prison for protecting my source material, it's natural that I would be interested in a law that would prevent others from enduring this same fate.

The last time I wrote about the bill's status was in August, after it cleared the House Judiciary Committee. Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee followed suit, and both houses of Congress are now ready to vote on the law.

While this is very exciting news for many journalists, I'm less than ecstatic, given that neither the version of the bill is ideal, and there is no telling how the two bills will be combined, should it pass both houses.

While the amended version of the House bill seeks to tie journalism to an economic exchange, the Senate's definition is broader in scope and would not only protect professionals but would likely apply to students and many bloggers as well.… Read more

Making sense of the million-dollar iPhone lawsuit

When Apple announced that it was dropping the price of the iPhone by $200, some jumped for joy and immediately headed out to their nearest Apple store. For others--early adopters who had already purchased Apple's gadget--the price drop was nothing short of a slap in the face. Some were satisfied when Steve Jobs said that these loyal customers would be provided a $100 credit toward their next Apple purchase, but many felt the credit didn't suffice. One of these unhappy shoppers has filed a lawsuit against Apple to the tune of $1 million dollars.

It's unclear how the litigant, Dongmei Li, plans to justify a million dollars in damages over a $200 price drop, but Li's argument is that "the price reduction injured early purchasers like herself because they cannot resell the product for the same profit as those who bought the cell phone following the price cut," according to CNN's account. So I guess that comes out to $200 in actual losses and $999,800 in pain and suffering.

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Photo-ops and media wranglers: My experience covering Clinton

Senator Hillary Clinton paid a surprise visit to Laney College today to announce that Oakland's mayor, Ron Dellums, has pledged his support for Clinton's bid for president. As an employee at peralta.TV, I had the opportunity to participate alongside the rest of the media in covering the event.

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The "fake news" virus spreads to San Francisco weekly

Do you remember the name Stephen Glass? How about Jayson Blair? Both men were hired as journalists at highly esteemed news publications but chose to write fiction instead of acting as reporters.

After reading Steroids Confidential, this week's cover story in the SF Weekly, my first conclusion was that its authors, Nic Foit and Ira Tes, had secured themselves a place alongside Glass and Blair in the business of manufacturing the truth. As it turns out, the title belongs The SF Weekly itself and, as the SFist points out "Nic Foit and Ira Tes" is nothing more than an anagram for steroid fanatic.

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Huffington Post doesn't plan to pay its bloggers

In most industries refusing to pay your labor force is not only unethical, it would likely border on slavery and be illegal as well. Apparently in the world of blogging it's considered good business practice.

As reported today in TechCrunch, the Huffington Post has just secured an additional $5 million in funding, for a total of $10 million, to continue developing one of the top blog destinations on the Internet. While it's unknown how the Post plans to invest the money, the co-founder of the company has made it clear that the writers at the site won't be seeing a dime.

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