ABSTRACT
American law enables widespread freedom to publish through the First Amendment’s guarantees that largely protect speech and press from government interference. This chapter outlines laws–defamation, privacy restrictions, copyright–are generally exceptions that courts have allowed to coexist with the great freedoms provided by the First Amendment. Fortunately for convergent journalists, fair use protects some uses of copyrighted works done for news purposes. Some jurisdictions have used similar logic to extend degree of protections to anonymous commenters on websites that journalism organizations host. Journalists have no special rights to go on private property to collect information, regardless of the public interest in it. Privacy law recognizes a tort sometimes known as “public disclosure of embarrassing private facts,” which involves revealing personal information such as sexual or medical matters about people who are not a matter of public concern. Defamation is speaking or publishing false statements that harm another person.
