Some big anti-media law firms work hard to derail investigative pieces before they're published or broadcast, and then conduct p.r. The cost of litigation is making media lawyers more cautious than they used to be. Others share the journalists' DNA and are eager to push the envelope's insides and challenge the limits of the law on how news gets covered. But one who enjoys working with newspapers, who enjoys watching news get broken, can be a big advantage. After spending many hours with counsel, I realized I can learn a whole lot by listening to them.
Media law is a landscape of shifting sands and moving targets.
Journalists are suffering through a period when the public's opinion of the profession is at an all-time low, and when judges and juries are angered about media methods of newsgathering that sometimes include trespass, misrepresentation, and fraud. We take a look at lawyers who spend their careers defending the press and others whose specialty is representing corporations and individuals who claim they've been wronged. Investigative reporting lives on the edge. You know upfront there will be complaints about a hard-hitting story. The lawyer's job is to make the legal perils perfectly clear and then let the editors decide.