Posted on 05/08/2012 3:35:15 PM PDT by Admin Moderator
Here's an example of what you probably won't need to worry about, but that newspapers need to worry about constantly. Successful libel lawsuits typically involve minor stories that weren't properly edited, not the big stories that get reviewed many times before they get published. Obvious examples include misidentifying the name of a drunk driver with the result that a local businessman suffers due to a screwup because an editor didn't catch that “John Q. Public, 54, of Anytown, Calif.” is not “John O. Public, 54, of Anytown, Calif.” That sounds minor until Mr. John O. Public goes to court alleging that he lost thousands of dollars in his taxi driving business and has five current and potential clients willing to testify that they stopped using his taxi service because they thought he had been arrested for DWI. We don't usually hear about such lawsuits because the newspapers know they'll lose so they settle out of court, but things like that get reporters and editors fired, give publishers ulcers, and keep lawyers busy.
Back on track...
Several people commenting have noted that Tea Party and other conservative events are being ignored. I've seen complaints elsewhere on Free Republic that conservative candidates for state office and even congressional districts are not being questioned, and requests have been made for better information on who's who from a Freeper perspective. Garbage claims are being made by leaders in government and elsewhere about things on which some people on Free Republic have professional expertise, and those FReepers could be refuting the garbage.
We can call that reporting, op-eds, or some other name, but things like that need to be done, and if Free Republic is able to do it, fantastic!
I'm not an uncritical fan of what some call “citizen journalism” — I am painfully aware of the problems — but if the traditional media can't or won't do things, Free Republic could provide a real service.
I'll look forward to seeing what happens!
BOOKbump
I see you didn't really get a straight answer. Maybe it means this:
In the 1950s we would have said "hubba hubba, wotta dame!"
The "citizen journalist" thing sounds good. If done well, the best writers could form a core group like Pajamas Media. If not done well it could turn into something like Newser or maybe HuffPo, where the most prolific posters display special badge icons to show how special they are. [shudder]
Re: the new FReeper Editorial page referenced in this thread. . .Would you like to add a list of all the new Freeper Editorial articles to your Main FR page? O.K. How to do that...
Go to the new FReeper Editorial page...
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/freepered-news/index
Just under the last FReeper Editorial shown, click on "Add to My Page".
That will take you to the page called "Manage Blocks" (My Page Layout). Look for the line “FReeper Editorial (News/Activism)” and choose the location where you would like a list of “FReeper Editorial” articles to be displayed on your main FR page.
When finished choosing, click the “Modify” button at the bottom of the page.
You can change it back or further modify it anytime on the “My Page Layout” page, just click “Account” at the top of your main FR page...then click “Manage Blocks”.
You can also click on the words "Configure Sidebar" found on the right side of the Main page under the Sidebar. This also takes you to "My Page Layout" where you can choose your personal preferences and add content to the Sidebars (Left, Right, Top, Bottom) on your Main FR page.
WOW! Bump this. I was lucky that JR allowed one of my articles to be published in breaking news. Now I can write some more. This is fantastic! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Woo! Hoo!
Will you add this one to our new category?
Governor Romney’s Housing Crisis (FR Exclusive)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2838983/posts
Thank you for posting that information. It’s embarrassing not to know those things after having been here for a while.
OK to have mod's review, even bounce back for edit, but limiting to the good old boys and those who contribute sounds a lot like today's republican party nomination process...not like a good means of encouraging thought or gaining creds.
That said: We ('though I have no idea how I can contribute) need to do everything possible to turn this into a lever for the changes that should have followed 2008 but fell short.
Should that be translated as "resist" or "resistor"?
Not sure if this would have qualified for the new category. (It was linked all over the Net at the time.) It wasn’t an editorial. It was more like investigative reporting. Thoughts?
JournoList: 157 Names Confirmed (With Organizations)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2573077/posts
Not sure if this would have qualified for the new category. (It was linked all over the Net at the time.) It wasn’t an editorial. It was more like investigative reporting. Thoughts?
JournoList: 157 Names Confirmed (With Organizations)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2573077/posts
I suggest freepmailing Lazmataz he created.....caused...it.
It was entertaining to me, but it offended some who are less sexist.
What an honor it must be to have his very own restriction!
You're welcome. It took me a few years to figure it out.
For any "Keyword" that is attached to an FR article, you can have a list of articles (to which that "Keyword" has been added) listed in a Sidebar on your main FR page (click on a Keyword, then click on the words "Add To My Page" found on the resulting page).
That would be a way to keep up with articles you're interested in, although not all articles have the Keywords added to them (anyone can add the appropriate Keywords to an article though).
Firearms articles consistently have the Keyword "banglist" added to them by people that appreciate the Keyword feature. I have a list of them included on my main FR page :)
Well, dadgum! I consider myself a keyword nut but I didn't know that. Thanks! I have a Free Republic bookmark folder and have a few keyword pages in there.
Also, substitute any FR “Topics” instead of “Keyword” in the procedure I described, and you can get a list of articles for that Topic to be displayed on your main FR page :)
(on technical drawings it's the latter)
I'm pretty sure I gave this a cursory read back in 2010 — if I remember right, one of our own local readers even posted a crosslink on the Pulaski County Web to your Free Republic coverage on the Palin hairdresser situation since he's been a Free Republic fan for many years — but I didn't realize at the time how critical Free Republic was in exposing this ridiculous situation.
Great work!
“Crowdsourcing” is not a panacea, but getting hundreds of angry activists to catch and call attention to stuff like this can quite effectively expose and embarrass people who need to be called on the carpet.
If Free Republic's new section can lead to this sort of thing being done more often, and localized to state-level and congressional races, it would be fantastic.
That kind of reporting is exactly what we are looking for.
Agreed - it needs to be by-default visible on the sidebars.
For example, at work, I am not permitted to walk by the receptionist's desk any more for any reason whatsoever, nor board any elevator with any female employees unless escorted by a chaperone.
I feel it would be an outrageous stretch for anyone to sue on a comment on a news item, and would end up with the Righthaven sort of smackdown that the litigant would deserve. Since the article is an extension of the comment ability, the very same would attain there as well. Yes, there is some theoretical liability, but I don't feel it to be a substantial risk.
However, even this remote risk does speak to one feature that I would love to see employed on this Freeper Editorial Sidebar (and this is where JohnRob comes in): It would be a great asset to the moderation of that sidebar if,
2) Once certain posters have earned their chops, perhaps they might be thought of as Regular Contributors (such as are featured in some of the news websites) and they might get an ability to post right away. If there was a problem, the article or opinion piece could be taken down in retrospect.
I understand this might take some new coding, but I don't see this as too formidable a programming task. Right John? I mean, if you had it all done in dotNet, it should be easy! Oh wait, you did it in Perl. ;)
Sorry, we’re not going to vet any posts, other than our regular moderating which is usually in response to submitted abuse reports and or for inappropriate or misclassified posts. We do not have an editorial staff. This is a discussion site, not a news reporting agency. Our posters are exercising their first amendment rights to post items for discussion and critiquing purposes. It’s opinion oriented. Sometimes our opinions do make news, though. Like (paraphrasing), “Something’s wrong with Rather’s letter. The fonts don’t look right for a typewriter.”
The right to express opinion is protected by law.
Powder..patch..ball FIRE!
EXCELLENT! Yeah I was yelling...
Bottom line up front: this is a great idea. It can work, and given the resources Jim has at his disposal (i.e., some very powerful conservatives who are capable of giving him top-notch advice on both legal and practical matters) I think it will work.
Legal environments differ from state to state, not in basic principles of libel law but rather on fine points, state precedents, and practical issues. I am not qualified to discuss details of California law and I'd be a fool to try. Jim has access to private legal advice so there's no point.
Reading between lines, I think the point Jim is making may be that his role providing an online forum to post opinions is a different category, legally speaking, from editing a newspaper and becoming responsible for every single thing in its pages. Internet law is in a tremendous state of flux, and the level of moderation, prior review, etc., that is exercised by the owner of a website becomes key in how courts will view the level of liability of the website owner vis-a-vis the person posting an article or posting a comment on an article.
I don't think anyone can safely predict how the courts will handle developing internet law down the road, but that distinction between posting content and providing a forum for others to post content was asserted last year by my business partner's lawyer, and it saved him from a lawsuit threat caused by allegedly libelous comments on an article. I'm not going to say more publicly since the statute of limitations on the alleged offense hasn't yet expired, the guy is still mad, and he has a long history of suing people, but I was very glad our business operations were designed with defending against litigation in mind. In my world, most people aren't going to spend five-digit sums of money merely to jump on me in court, especially since any lawyer worth his salt will find out very fast that I know what I'm doing, I don't make the sort of screwball mistakes that typically get reporters sued, and I have the financial resources to fight back hard rather than buckling under at the first threat. However, I'm a conservative, and that means I'm cheap, so I hate spending money I don't need to spend and prefer to prepare in advance rather than suffer due to lack of advance planning.
Also, “balls” count. It's possible for management be so scared of their shadows that people can't do their jobs. Anyone who knows Free Republic's history knows its owner doesn't back down easily and that will help him tremendously.
Lawyers for big newspapers, networks, and TV and radio stations are used to threats and respond accordingly. There's a reason for that. Giving in to bullies makes the bullying worse.
Anyway, I said up front that this is a great idea. I hope it takes off. Free Republic could do a tremendous amount of good with original content, especially at the state and congressional district levels.
Okay bro, just tossing ideas out there. Some you might like, some will suck. I'm not emotionally invested in any of them.... :)
Would you happen to have a link to that? I bet it was a hoot ... thanks!
EXCELLENT!!!! That should be required reading for all noob FReepers as well as a refresher for those who have been around a while. Thanks for sharing - you made my day (and bookmarked too ... hehe)!!
Or "FrEd" for short, maybe.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1011545/posts?name=#40
and a very nice piece it is too.
Here’s a point you may want to consider: the old media is unlikely to publish FR-produced content, so its influence will be largely determined by the extent to it is picked up by other conservative blogs. Unfortunately, FR has earned a reputation for being extremely hostile to the bloggers who post here - especially those who excerpt their articles, something that virtually all other media sources require.
It won’t immediately eliminate the problem, but an official moratorium on greeting external bloggers with contempt and ridicule would be a useful start.
Interesting Times
Just my 2 cents, but bloggers who post 3 word ticklers, steal graphics from others, paraphrase or plagiarize from other sources, use a you tube video as their blog content or post and run at FR (with no participation) deserve ridicule.
What of those bloggers who research and write quality stories, excerpt them here, and are treated like rabid skunks?
NNNOOOOO!!!!!!! (sob)
I'm sure there are some. My non-scientific sample says there few. Can you point out a few? I'd like to see example of those that were unfairly ridiculed.
...they're...
BTT
I love the idea.
Can we continue to use our Freeper labels or do we have to post investigative journalism with a real name attached?
I have always been very protective of cyber privacy concerns.
I also think the first person account part is critical. That doesn’t mean the person can’t have opinions about what he or she has heard/seen/done, but the facts come first. Thanks for that. It is right on the money.
Right now, posting is no different than posting anything else, just the category and the type of content. It is your choice if you use your real name in the author field. I don’t see this ever being a requirement or even suggestion.
Perhaps you could offer to be the editor in chief?
Doesn’t Bray write on the Sunday Morning News threads....she’s also quite the writer.
Hi there, Laz! Thanks so much for the vote of confidence and the invitation -- high praise, coming from you!
Good to see you.
What do you mean, "other" blogs? Do you think FR is a blog?
FR has earned a reputation for being extremely hostile to the bloggers who post here - especially those who excerpt their articles
That's because the little wankers are using FR as advertising to get hits.
an official moratorium on greeting external bloggers with contempt and ridicule would be a useful start
If they don't excerpt their material they never hear a word of criticism.
I wasn’t talking to you.
You contribute nothing of value here, and do significant damage to FR’s reputation on the Web.
Too bad, I read it anyway.
We have gotten entirely away from content. If you go to the McGuffy Readers, they didn't teach "critical thinking." They taught straight up morals, patriotism, Biblical truths, etc. The notion that you can teach "critical thinking" outside of a vast body FIRST of information and basics, is flawed.
The fact is, when we taught "only" facts, we had far smarter and more innovative people (on the whole) than we do today.
Further, "critical thinking" ALWAYS assumes two points of view, that any position has "some validity" that we must "critically analyze." Well, no. Once a truth is established as a truth, you don't continually revisit it. We don't test anew gravity every year (ie., seeking to prove it). It is now a building block upon which we rest other ideas.
So I'm extremely skeptical of teaching "critical thinking" as an end. If you teach content correctly people will learn to think critically.
Having taught each of my four sons to read via McGuffey Readers, I must emphatically disagree. McGuffey did not teach straight up morals, etc., he offered well written literary pieces that illustrated proper behavior--behavior that actually worked for the benefit of the doer, his family & community; and foolish behavior that did not work--at least not for good--so that the child learned the critical thinking behind the ancient truths being illustrated.
The present debased educational structure does not work that way. Rather it assumes undemonstrated--and clearly false premises--that are treated as sacrosanct. The result, instead of the principled youth of McGuffey's day, we have the chanting Egalitarian automatons at a 2008 Obama rally, chanting in unison for changing America. The automatons may be on the attack, but they most certainly do not illustrate "critical thinking."
William Flax
bookmark
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.