A Star Blogger is fired by Fairfax…
no not me….(I’m still doing a little work for Fairfax) (oh yeah – and am not a star)….
…or Juha, who has recently moved is job, and blog, (where he is a star) to Fairfax NZ. (Welcome aboard!)
No – Fairfax Australia, clearly a corporation run by foreigners*, has fired The Daily Truth’s Jack Marx. and via email at that.
Marx blogged:
“Kevin would have smelled her — the silky perfume, the hint of sweat, the musky other,”
While writing about Kevin Rudd, who is the great Australian Labour Party hopeful that got himself into a NYC strip club a few years back.
Marx was fired for
“the latest in a long line of indiscretions”
Which is a tough decision. I’m not at all informed about the prior indiscretions, but don’t really think that the above necessarily crosses the line for a blog. for a newspaper yes, but a blog no.
But the editor probably had no choice. It’s a legal thing.
You see the legal systems in Australia and New Zealand are heavily weighted against newspapers when it comes to potential matters of libel.
It’s easy to propagate a libel lawsuit against big media – that is if you have big money and lawyers on your side. There are some folk in NZ and Australia that are almost untouchable as a result – write about them at your peril.
What really concerns me is that the law, as strictly read, brings blog entries on newspaper websites into that fold – and not just blog entries, but also comments on the blog. So if someone on a Fairfax Newspaper blog makes an insiduous comment about a high profile litigious Kiwi, then in theory that person can go after Fairfax. and the blogger. and the commenter even. perhaps.
So media companies must err on the side of discretion, which means things like moderated comments, reviewing comments on blogs that attract contentious content, and, what was clearly lacking in this case, sometimes even previewing blogger entries before they are posted.
The problem is that great blogging content is timely, opinionated and , lets face it, sometimes wrong. The resulting discussion (think Slashdot) more often than not gets to the right answer – when comments are open. and work. However, the very characteristics that can make blogging so wonderful are anathema to libel lawyers and newspaper editors. Blogs stop working if editorial and comments don’t appear quickly, while Editors like material that is fact checked, sub edited, and, if necessary, run by a legal mind.
Meanwhile to readers what is clearly inappropriate in a newspaper is often ok in a blog, and more often ok on a message board. We can all only hope that litigants, lawyers and judges think the same way – no case has been tested yet.
It’s not just blogs. In NZ legal theory Trade Me is liable for comments made on their message board, and Facebook/MySpace/Bebo for theirs. I’d love to see someone go after MySpace.
Which is all patently ridiculous, but doesn’t stop media companies from being very worried, and retaining those fine legal minds.
In the long run I’m backing technology to win, but there is a long road to travel first.
*That would be a Kiwi foreigner.
Lance Wiggs 