"Tort Law and Journalism Ethics"

That's the title of my new law review article that will be published in Loyola University Chicago Law Journal. It can be downloaded from SSRN. You'll appreciate this paper if you're tired of a 21st Century press that disregards individual privacy, infiltrates the news with sensationalized stories, and blames their inaccurate reporting on "getting the story out there first" (in particular with respect to participants in the sports and entertainment industries).

I advocate that the justification for the First Amendment privilege becomes less compelling as the press continues to lose credibility and journalists fail to adhere to ethics principles they were taught in journalism school. The paper provides an in-depth analysis of Supreme Court precedent and explains how journalism ethics codes can be incorporated into tort defamation and privacy law standards without compromising the First Amendment. Journalism ethics and the First Amendment go hand in hand; they must co-exist in order to serve the social policies and objectives that support the First Amendment privilege.

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