Comm Law

The Freedom Forum has a good rundown of Supreme Court Justice nominee John Roberts’ involvement with First Amendment issues. More »

John Fund of the Wall Street Journal says 18 years is long enough for U.S. Supreme Court Justices. More »

Accused pedophile Roman Polanki won about $100,000 from Vanity Fair for a 2002 story that claimed he hit on a model on the way to his dead wife’s funeral. Turns out it was two weeks later, the magazine says. More »

Sports Illustrated is dealing with a libel suit by the former coach of the University of Alabama, Mike Price. It’s a good description of how reporting works at a major weekly and a good example of the trouble that arises from anonymous sources.

It’s on page 1 of the Wall Street Journal today. More »

The Chico News & Appeal has pulled a story that plays up the party school reputation of California’s Chico State University so it can get its advertisement-laden edition into student packets distributed by the school. The story will continue to appear on the publication’s Web site and in editions not distributed through the school. More »

The Freedom Forum, a free speech organization based in Washington D.C. and Nashville, has released its annual First Amendment survey. Among the findings: More »

O.K. My final Supreme Court picks were only slightly off the mark. The court split on the Ten Commandments – they can be on government property but can’t stand alone inside government facilities. I should have guessed it right. More »

The Seventh Circuit ruled that unless a public university has designated a newspaper a public forum, administrators can exercise editorial control, a la high school students in Hazelwood (1988). It’s essentially a rejection of a three-judge panel decision in 2001 in Hosty v. Carter. We’ll see how far it goes. More »

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule Monday at 10 a.m. on the issue of whether states can place the Ten Commandments on their capitol lawns. (And I don’t mean the movie with Charlton Heston.) Kentucky and Texas both have monuments to the Decalogue. It also will rule on whether Grokster can be held liable for the fact that so many people put its technology to use – gasp – for illegal purposes.

Here’re my guesses: More »

I told a student I would post this. It’s very explicit in its description of what is and isn’t indecent over the air. More »