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The Media Giraffe Project is blogging intermittently from a conference on
computational journalism at the Georgia Institute of Technology: http://newshare.typepad.com/jtm2008sv/georgiatech/index.html
Katharine Webster (kwebster33@msn.com) at the Nieman Foundation at Harvard sends along information about this year's Nieman Narrative Journalism conference, March 14-16 in Boston, which is taking a slightly new focus under a new director, Connie Hale. "This year's conference could be of particular interest to people drawn to Media Giraffe, as the new narrative director has expanded it to include many more multimedia/new media speakers and sessions, including some hands-on instruction," says Webster in an email. Webster thinks mid-career journalists and "up-and-coming community journalists" will be likely attendees. The posting notice reads:
Register NOW for the annual Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism, one of the nation's premiere conferences for journalism and narrative nonfiction. This year's event, "Storytelling in Many Voices, Many Media," will feature more than 50 speakers, including award-winning writers, filmmakers, broadcasters, and multimedia practitioners. NEW this year: multimedia sessions and three-hour practical workshops on everything from audio slideshows to publishing your book. Join us March 14-16 at the Sheraton Boston for a three-day weekend packed with inspiration, hands-on learning, and networking! Go to http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/narrative2008 for more information and to register.
A unit of Harvard Law School has launched the first sections of what will become a comprehensive how-to legal guide for journalists operating online. The Berkman Center at Harvard Law School's "Citizen Media Law Project" (CMLP) guide is intended for, according to a statement from Seth Young, a spokesman for Berkman. (syoung@cyber.law.harvard.edu -- (617-384-9135) The guide is intended for use by citizen media creators with or without formal legal training and addresses the legal issues that traditional and non-traditional journalists are likely to encounter as they gather information and publish their work online, Young wrote.
The sections of the legal guide released so far include "Forming a Business and Getting Online," which covers forming a for-profit or nonprofit business entity, choosing an online platform, and dealing with critical legal issues relating to the mechanics of online publishing, and "Dealing with Online Legal Risks," which covers the legal issues involved in operating a blog or website, finding insurance, finding legal help, and responding to the different kinds of legal threats publishers may face as a result of their online activities.
In November, the CMLP launched a "legal Threats database," an interactive
compendium of legal threats directed at online speech. The database
contains lawsuits, subpoenas, and other types of legal threats from 37 states and 11 countries. These threats range from copyright infringement lawsuits filed against bloggers to cease and desist letters claiming defamation sent to MySpace users. Visitors to the CMLP's website can input new threat entries, comment on existing threats, and search the database in a number of ways, including by location, legal claim, publication medium, and content type.
"We are especially excited about integrating the information in our legal guide with the legal threats database we created. Visitors to the site can read about actual cases addressing the issues they are learning about in the legal guide. We've collected court decisions, legal briefs, and other relevant documents to bring these cases to life and help visitors understand how judges and lawyers actually apply the law," David Ardia commented.
The legal guide is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. It will initially cover the 15 most populous U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Once complete, it will focus on the wide range of legal issues online publishers face, including risks associated with publication, such as defamation and privacy law; newsgathering; access to government information; intellectual property; and corporate/nonprofit formation and governance. The CMLP will continue to roll out new sections of the legal guide through the spring.
About the Citizen Media Law Project
The Citizen Media Law Project, which is jointly affiliated with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and the Center for Citizen Media, has five primary objectives: legal education and training; collection and analysis of legal threats; litigation referral, consultation, and representation; community building; and advocacy on behalf of citizen media. It was the recipient of a 2007 John S. and James L. Knight Foundation News Challenge grant. For more information, visit http://www.citmedialaw.org.
About the Berkman Center for Internet & Society
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School is proud to celebrate its tenth year as a research program founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development. Founded in 1997, through a generous gift from Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman, theCenter is now home to an ever-growing community of faculty, fellows, staff, and affiliates working on projects that span the broad range of intersections between cyberspace, technology, and society. More information can be found at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu and http://www.berkmanat10.org.
About the Center for Citizen Media
The Center for Citizen Media, which is co-sponsored by Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication and the Berkman Center, aims to understand, enhance, and expand grassroots journalism and its reach. Since its 2005 launch, the CCM has initiated a number of projects including a survey of how traditional media organizations are bringing their audiences into the journalism process and a directory of citizen media projects and tools. More information can be found at http://www.citmedia.org.
About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes journalism excellence worldwide and invests in the vitality of the U.S. communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Since 1950 the foundation has granted more than $300 million to advance journalism quality and freedom of expression. Knight Foundation supports ideas and projects that create transformational change. For more information, visit http://www.knightfdn.org.
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