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A tempest is brewing in western Missouri that will test the scope of the state's 'reporter's shield' privilege in criminal cases. The controversy arose when Buchanan County prosecutors subpoenaed a [...]

Reporters looking for a primer on defamation law should take a look at a recent 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals opinion focusing on the 'fair report' privilege in Missouri. [...]

The U.S. Supreme Court met the Internet Age in a June opinion that defines the rights of freelance authors in electronic versions of their articles. In the first case squarely [...]

As far as its impact on the media is concerned, the 2001 legislative session will be remembered more for what didn't happen than for what did. Most prominent was the [...]

Back when he could talk, Muhammad Ali used to proclaim himself the most famous person in the world, equally recognizable in Times Square, the Australian outback and the jungles of [...]

The Missouri Supreme Court is sued two important rulings on March 6 that will allow greater access to court documents and public records. In Pulitzer Publishing Company v. Transit Casualty [...]

For professionals who make their living by communicating, lawyers are surprisingly bad interviews. In my experience, they have two standard responses to media inquiries-they either refuse to comment at all [...]

By and large, Missouri's open government statute--the Sunshine Law--has been a great success since its enactment in 1973. Citizens have learned to insist that public business be conducted in public, [...]

Thanks to a ruling by the Missouri Court of Appeals, dozens of carriers for Suburban newspapers can go forward with a lawsuit in which they claim the publisher intentionally destroyed [...]

No one likes to be criticized. Especially judges. We were reminded of that following the media's reaction to the sentencing of attorney Michael Lazaroff, who had pleaded guilty to mail [...]

The only thing worse than getting sued is getting sued 1,000 miles away from home. That's what a number of companies, including publishers, have found out after launching their websites. [...]

The legal victories keep rolling in for Pulitzer Publishing Company. The latest comes in a lawsuit filed by Seung Lee, one of the joggers who was hit by a St. [...]

Just a few months ago no one would have predicted that an organization could manage a scandal more ineptly than Enron did. But then along came the priest sex-abuse uproar--and [...]

Journalism outranks law on the list of most hated professions. That may be the message a jury intended to send last month when it hit the Boston Herald with a [...]

Two court opinions handed down in August involving Missouri newspapers show how tough it is to win a lawsuit against publishers. The first opinion concerned a fight between the Kansas [...]

Sometimes differing opinions can shed light on a complex issue. St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch sent me a letter objecting to a column I wrote in June. The column [...]

Pay close attention next time you come across a report about the arrest of a criminal suspect, especially in a high-profile case. You're likely to hear the prosecutor comment on [...]

A courtroom defeat for a southeast Missouri newspaper could spell trouble for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The ruling came in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the Butler County Publishing [...]

I like to collect legal cliches. A couple of my favorites are: I'm not going to. try this case in the press,' or 'This lawsuit is not about money but [...]

Even the most 'obviously' guilty defendants proclaim their innocence throughout the course of a criminal case. That's why we have defense lawyers. That's why we have trials. That's why the [...]

The media get a lot of unfair criticism, but if any shot hits the mark, it's the charge of laziness. I don't mean a distaste for hard work, but a [...]

Here are my top 10 year-in-review legal stories of 2002 in St. Louis. Clergy abuse: The clergy sex abuse scandal was, by far, the top legal story of the year. [...]

Jealousy is a sin that afflicts many I journalists. It emerges when we come across an especially fine piece of someone else's writing. 'What I wouldn't give to write something [...]

On second thought, KSDK (Channel 5) did not commit an unfair labor practice when it ignored a unionization attempt by its news producers. That's what the full 8th U.S. Circuit [...]

I'm a proud member of the two most hated professions in America, if you believe opinion polls--law and media. If married people were allowed to become priests, I could turn [...]

It's not like 'L.A. Law.'' I remember a professor making that remark during law school when someone asked what it's really like to be an attorney. And I'm sure all [...]

An expose about a white supremacist organization resulted in a libel lawsuit against the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, but the paper won a legal victory in April when a judge dismissed [...]

It's become an annual rite of spring in the state legislature. Open-records bills are introduced, much ink is spilled over toughening the Sunshine Law, and then nothing much is accomplished [...]

Branch dealers of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch suffered a major defeat last month in their ongoing litigation against Pulitzer Publishing Co. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out [...]

The strategy in most lawsuits is to make the other side look as incompetent and villainous as possible. For example, in a car-accident case the victim will argue that the [...]

Last year's marathon presidential election was definitely short on humor and entertainment. But there was one incident that I got a big kick out of--watching reporters trying to decipher on [...]