MLRC INSTITUTE
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MLRC Institute Event Wins Award
An event co-sponsored with the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression on the reporter’s privilege in Seattle won a “Democracy in Action” award from the Alliance for Community Media. Click above link to access the video.
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UPCOMING EVENTS
For upcoming MLRC Institute events in your area, click here.
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The MLRC Institute (formerly the LDRC Institute) is a 501(c)(3) charitable non-profit corporation created in 1988 to sponsor and support First Amendment education and research projects.
Our projects include:
First Amendment Speakers Bureau
The MLRC Institute created the First Amendment Speakers Bureau in 2005 to educate the general public about the importance of the First Amendment. It currently facilitates presentations on two topics: publishing online and the reporter’s privilege.
The Speakers Bureau is made up of reporters, editors and media lawyers from around the country, who have been conducting presentations – at conferences, colleges, high schools, bookstores, rotary clubs and other venues – on these two topics using a “turn-key” set of materials created by the MLRC Institute.
Past presentations have taken place at the National Press Club, University of Maine, University of Hawaii, Arizona State University, Princeton University, University of Missouri, Southern Methodist University, University of Cincinnati, Wichita State University, Journalism Education Association conferences and high school press association conferences.
The MLRC Institute has received a grant from the McCormick Foundation to develop and administer the First Amendment Speakers Bureau.
The topics on which First Amendment Speakers Bureau presentations are available are:
Online News: Redefining Journalism?
This presentation addresses the media’s use of the Internet; news organizations’ interaction with their audience online; the use of content submitted by readers and viewers; blogs, whether kept by media staff or the public; liability for defamation for statements made online; and copyright and privacy law.
We have prepared a “turn-key” set of materials for speakers to use: presentation topics and handouts. We suggest that journalists and media lawyers give presentations together so as to provide insight into both the practical and legal issues of publishing online.
Reporter’s Privilege: Protecting the Sources of Our News
Presentations on the reporter’s privilege provide an explanation of the privilege and its history, with the heart of the presentation focusing on why this privilege should matter to the public. Central to the presentations has been journalists telling their own stories – about articles and broadcasts they could not have reported but for their use of confidential sources, and about ever-increasing threats to their use of these sources.
As with presentations on publishing online, we have prepared a “turn-key” set of materials for speakers to use, including, a PowerPoint presentation and written handout materials that provide more background on (a) the history of the privilege, (b) stories that could not have been told but for the use of confidential sources, and (c) the legal bases for the privilege. We also suggest that journalists and media lawyers from the community jointly make the presentation so that the audience may fully appreciate both the practical importance of and the legal framework for the reporter’s privilege.
Setting up an Event
If you are interested in being a speaker or hosting a presentation in your area, please contact:
Maherin Gangat
MLRC Staff Attorney
(212) 337-0200, ext. 214
mgangat@medialaw.org
MLRC Institute's Online Libel Module and Quiz
Reporting and commenting on news, events, issues and ideas is the role of the press in America. Now with the advent of the Internet, it is becoming the province of ordinary people as well, with blogs and websites able to reach vast audiences.
The MLRC Institute has created an online module designed to help reporters, bloggers and interested citizens understand the basics of defamation law to reduce the risks of being sued for what you say and publish.
It begins with an overview of the law, followed by a real life reporting scenario and a series of questions. Take the Quiz to see how much you learned.
White Paper on the Reporter's Privilege
In 2004, the MLRC Institute published the Media Law Resource Center White Paper on the Reporter’s Privilege, a series of articles that assess the history of the reporter’s privilege and the arguments and empirical rationales that support it. The reporter’s privilege – which enables reporters to decline to divulge confidential sources and other unpublished information in judicial and other governmental proceedings – is one of the great tools of journalists in the United States and around the world. Recognized by the courts and legislatures here and abroad, it has benefited the public interest by affording journalists broad access to ideas and facts that might otherwise remain hidden and secret from the press and public.
The White Paper on the Reporter’s Privilege was made possible with a grant from the McCormick Foundation.
Free Press in a Free Society
In 1999, the Institute began developing Free Press in a Free Society, a First Amendment education project. The program is free to schools and organizations and relies on volunteer lawyers to moderate panels in their local high schools and at events for high school students, drawing on local reporters and legal experts to educate students on First Amendment press issues. The goal of the program is to educate high school students on First Amendment values in the context of the real life issues and dilemmas faced by the working press.
Free Press in a Free Society programs have been held in Colorado, New York, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Texas.
Among the reporters, editors, law enforcement experts and lawyers who have participated in the Free Press in a Free Society program are: David Diaz (WCBS-TV); Stephen Engelberg (The New York Times); David Gelber (60 Minutes); Rikki Klieman (Court TV); Len Levitt (Newsday); Larry Neumeister (Associated Press); Juliet Papa (1010 WINS); Eric Shawn (Fox News); Lou Young (WCBS-TV); Commissioner Paul Browne (NYPD); Neil Herman (former FBI counter terrorism expert); Zachary Carter (former federal court judge); the Honorable Emily Jane Goodman (Supreme Court State of New York); Jack Litman (Litman, Asche & Gioiella); and Solomon Watson (General Counsel, The New York Times Company).
With support from the First Amendment Center, MLRC Institute has created a detailed program handbook that contains strategies for producing and moderating these seminars. The handbook also has three fully developed hypothetical scenarios that can be used as a basis for a seminar as well as a videotape of a seminar.
MLRC Institute Trustees and Officers
The Trustees and Officers of the MLRC Institute are:
- Stephanie Abrutyn (Chair), Home Box Office
- Jay Ward Brown (Treasurer), Hiscox Global Markets
- Jonathan Donnellan, Hearst Corporation
- Henry Hoberman, RHI Entertainment
- Andrew M. Mar, Microsoft Corporation
- Michael W. Quinn, Time Warner Cable
- Kenneth A. Richieri, The New York Times Company
- Sandra Baron, MLRC Executive Director
- Maherin Gangat (Secretary), MLRC Staff Attorney
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