Author Archive | Margo Lanier

Law students give legal guidance to Reese News Lab’s Capitol Hound

By on February 2, 2015 in Internet, Journalism, Transparency

CapitolHoundLogoStudents enrolled in a UNC School of Law practicum class have provided legal guidance to a project whose faculty advisers have been named recipients of the University’s 2014 C. Felix Harvey Award for Institutional Priorities. The faculty will receive $50,000 to help improve state government transparency through a web application called Capitol Hound.

The law students, as part of a third-year “capstone” class entitled Media and Internet Law Practicum, worked with students in the Reese News Lab in the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication to identify and address a host of legal issues involved with the development of Capital Hound, including copyright, trademark, licensing, and contract issues. The law students were an integral part of the development team at Reese News, helping to make sure legal issues didn’t get in the way of the project’s success. The course was created by and is taught by David Ardia, an assistant professor in the law school and co-director of the UNC Center for Media law and Policy.

School of Journalism and Mass Communication faculty members John Clark and Sara Peach are the recipients of the award. Read more about the award and about Capitol Hound here.

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True Threats and Free Speech

By on January 22, 2015 in First Amendment, Internet

The extent to which the First Amendment protects threatening messages on Facebook and elsewhere will be the subject of a panel discussion at the UNC School of Law at noon on Monday, Jan. 26.

Co-sponsored by the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy, the discussion will focus on Elonis v. United States, a case recently argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. You can read more about the event here.

One of the panelists will be UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication Ph.D. student Brooks Fuller, who recently had an article about threatening Internet messages and the First Amendment published in the Hastings Communication & Entertainment Law Journal. The citation is: P. Brooks Fuller, Evaluating Intent in True Threats Cases: The Importance of Context in Analyzing Threatening Internet Messages, 37 Hastings Comm. & Ent. L. J. 37 (2015).

From the abstract:

Following the Supreme Court’s most recent ruling on the true threats doctrine, Virginia v. Black (2003), significant conflict emerged among the federal circuit courts. The primary issue became whether the First Amendment, as interpreted by the Court in Virginia v. Black, requires a subjective intent standard to be read into all statutes that criminalize true threats, or whether the First Amendment only requires such a statute to require the prosecution to demonstrate that a reasonable person would consider the message to be a true threat. Speakers’ use of social networking websites and Internet forums for the purposes of posting violent and intimidating communications raises significant questions regarding the posture of the true threats doctrine and its application to modern modes of communication. In June 2014, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Elonis v. United States, a true threats case involving posts on Facebook. The defendant, who posted violent messages in the form of rap lyrics and other pop culture references, argued that the trial courts misread Virginia v. Black and violated his First Amendment rights when it failed to instruct the jury to consider his subjective intent in addition to the objective standard. This paper utilizes legal research methods to examine federal courts’ treatment of Internet threats and highlights aspects of Internet speech that are particularly problematic for the true threats doctrine.

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Media Law Grad Student Selected for Future Faculty Fellowship Program

By on January 11, 2015 in Journalism

Kriste Patrow, a first-year Ph.D. student in the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication who works in the Center for Media Law and Policy, has been selected to participate in the Future Faculty Fellowship Program (FFFP) at Carolina. Run by the University’s Center for Faculty Excellence, the semester-long program introduces graduate students to evidence-based teaching practices, helps them understand the roles and responsibilities of faculty members at different types of institutions of higher education, and helps them reflect on their professional goals. Admission to the FFFP is competitive and comes with an honorarium.
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Kriste will teach Introduction to Media Law to undergraduates in the journalism school this summer.

Congratulations, Kriste!

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UNC Celebrated Its Sixth Annual First Amendment Day Event

By on September 28, 2014 in Center for Media Law and Policy, First Amendment

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill celebrated its sixth annual First Amendment Day on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2014. This campus-wide, daylong event celebrated the First Amendment and explored its role in the lives of Carolina students.

University community members read from banned books, a cappella groups sung controversial music, and many people participated in panels to discuss the importance of the First Amendment.

Click on the story ‘First Amendment and First Freedoms’ to read more about the different events that students enjoyed on First Amendment Day or visit the webpage.
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First Amendment Day is organized by the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy. The UNC Center for Media Law and Policy is a collaboration between the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the School of Law.

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First Amendment Day Retold by Social Media

By on September 24, 2014 in First Amendment, Journalism

Journalism students followed the hashtag #UNCfree to learn what people were saying on social media about First Amendment Day.  After compiling the content, they connected the images, tweets and videos into a news story to summarize their experiences of First Amendment Day events.

Check out some of their multimedia stories edited with Storify.

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