NYSE says trading floor trademark protected

The New York Stock Exchange sent the editors of Talking Points Memo a cease-and-desist letter to stop the online publication from using wire photos of the trading floor. The NYSE argues that the floor is trademarked, so any images of the floor are a violation of NYSE's trademark rights. Which is nonsense. TPM republished the photo that triggered the threat letter, alongside a sassy blog post from TPM Editor Josh Marshall.

The Assange conundrum

The U.S. Department of Justice is tangled in knots - that's a good thing, and let's hope it stays that way.

Frustrated at the release of thousands of diplomatic cables on WikiLeaks, an impotent federal government desperately wants to punish Julian Assange and teach a scary lesson to all other would-be whistle blowers and leakers of sensitive information. The problems are the First Amendment and the fact that what Assange did, from all that's been reported, falls outside definitions of criminal behavior. Indeed, to criminalize Assange's actions would be to criminalize investigative journalism, which has a glorious tradition of convincing unhappy insiders to leak secret, sensitive and confidential information for publication.

The arguments that WikiLeaks has no editorial oversight or Assange has a non-journalistic agenda are interesting in the context of what makes good journalism, but have no bearing on the legality of what WikiLeaks did - the press doesn't have to be good to be free.

That said, it is undoubtedly true that professional journalists enjoy extra protection from prosecution because they can point to their editorial standards and oversight. Courts do not operate outside the realm of public pressure and politics. Indeed, prosecutors would be much more abusive of journalists if news institutions didn't have the resources to hire good lawyers to push back, or didn't have the leverage to convince legislators to pass shield laws, or a soap box to call out the abuse. But the WikiLeaks situation will demand the courts deal with fundamental questions about press freedom.

Glenn Greenwald at Salon has summarized what some media observers are saying about the potential for a government case against Assange, including the questionable treatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is suspected of being the source of the cable leaks and others.

Private enterprise more important than free press, Philly judge rules

A district court judge in Philadelphia has banned "the media" from covering next week's auction of the Philadelphia Daily News and the Philadelphia Inquirer. The auction is taking place in open court, meaning open to the public, but the judge said having reporters there would just be too disruptive - and the papers' creditors happily agreed.

The many ironies and contradictions are enough to buckle a rational mind: A free press being banned from an open court hearing, for starters. A free press being banned from covering a public event in a public facility that concerns the future of the free press, for another.

Want more?

A federal judge blithely employing prior restraint against a constitutionally protected practice. A federal judge choosing to limit a constitutionally protected practice in order to promote a business deal. A federal judge choosing the interests of private business over the public's right to know in a case when two entities established to maintain the public's right to know (the very thing that gives them value) are on the chopping block.

One further complication: The creditors' committee includes the Newspaper Guild, a union representing the news reporters. That puts a reporter in the courtroom. To ensure he maintains control, the judge said the reporter would have to forsake his identity and act only as a representative of the creditors.

Unless a smart attorney or First Amendment group gets Judge Stephen Raslavich to come to his senses, the story of what happens to these two newspapers will be told by wealthy businessmen.

Four in the morning

1. The judge in the Tribune Co. bankruptcy case has appointed a mediator to work through the impasse. LAT

2. Media critic Jack Shafer says hostage situations should not be covered as de facto breaking news. Slate

3. Press freedoms in Latin America are being chipped away despite the democratic reforms. Newsweek

4. The Associated Press has released new guidelines for giving credit to news organizations that originally reported information that's been assimilated into AP stories. AP

Four in the afternoon

1. Two from fishbowlLA: Los Angeles Times reporters warned to watch what they're tweeting (link); and Los Angeles Times blogger Andrew Malcolm is told to remove a link to the donation page of Sarah Palin's political action committee and, in doing so, takes the opportunity to once again promote Sarah Palin's political action committee (link and link).

2. ProPublica has video of the police detaining one of the news site's photographers while he was working on a story about BP. The video also shows police giving the photog's personal information to a BP security guard - apparently refineries are a special arm of government. ProPublica

3. Let the outsourcing begin: Gannett, the largest newspaper chain in the country, plans to design papers out of five strategically located hubs. No word yet on whether this means laying off local designers and copy editors. Gannett Blog

4. Track the Gulf Oil spill with AP's spillmeter. AP

Keeping us safe from a free press

Today's "To The Point" is about the new "safety zone" established by the Coast Guard that blocks reporters and photographers from getting close enough to the Gulf spill zone to do their job effectively. The show was produced by Katie Cooper. TTP

In iPhone case, shield law doesn't matter

A court has set aside concerns that police trampled the state's shield law protecting the free-press rights of journalists and appointed a "special master" to search through the computer files of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen in hopes of finding information about a prototype iPhone. Apparently Chen's attorney, Thomas Nolan, brokered a deal to let the search happen.

Chen published several online stories and videos about the prototype, which he obtained after Gizmodo's parent company, Gawker Media, agreed to pay $5000 to a man who said he found the phone in a bar.

Wyoming judge embraces prior restraint*

From the AP:

In a rare move, a Wyoming judge has blocked two newspapers from publishing stories on an internal report about a college president's trip to Costa Rica, saying the report was improperly taken and that releasing details could prompt the federal government to cut college grant money.

Said the college newspapers' attorney:

"If we're going to argue that the Pentagon Papers should be allowed to be published, then I'm unclear how a document of this nature — which basically is a report about a president's performance at a community college in Wyoming — is even sensible."

(found via Romenesko)

*Updated, 5/26: The judge has realized the error of his ways and reversed the order.

FBI linguist gets jail for leaking to blogger

An FBI linguist will serve 20 months in prison for passing confidential information to a blogger, Politico reports.

From the story:

The sentence for Shamai Leibowitz is likely to become the longest ever served by a government employee accused of passing national security secrets to a member of the media. His case represents only the third known conviction in U.S. history for a government official or contractor providing classified information to the press.

And it reflects a surprising development: President Barack Obama’s Justice Department has taken a hard line against leakers, and Obama himself has expressed anger about disclosures of national security deliberations in the press.

This follows last month's indictment of Thomas Drake for allegedly leaking information about mismanagement at the NSA to a Baltimore Sun reporter and a subpoena of New York Times reporter James Risen over a book he wrote exposing a CIA program against Iran.

Tennessee twits

The Tennessee Legislature took a step back from complete stupidity on Monday, when lawmakers rejected a vengeful measure that would have banned a single Associated Press photographer from the Capitol because he photographed the House speaker collapse on the floor from low blood sugar. From knoxnews.com:

The resolution said Schelzig hindered "emergency medical personnel from providing necessary medical care" to Williams.

But video footage from a local television station showed Schelzig was actually behind a glass barrier where reporters are required to work.

Hmm.

Freedom of the press*

President Barack Obama today is expected to sign the Daniel Pearl Freedom of Press Act. From AP:

President Barack Obama plans to sign a law Monday intended to provide more protections for a free press around the world.

The law, known as the Daniel Pearl Freedom of Press Act, expands efforts to identify countries where press freedom is being violated. The law is named after Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was beheaded in Pakistan in 2002.

*UPDATE: After he signed the bill, Obama said the press was free to ask questions and that he was free to ignore them.

Keeping us safe from the terrors of a free press

Los Angeles Times reporter Tina Susman said she and another reporter, Dionne Searcy of the Wall Street Journal, were detained and then bullied by Orlando International Airport president Larry Dale after they returned from Haiti. Susman said they had hitched a ride back to the U.S. on a cargo plane carrying Haitian evacuees and were detained as they were interviewing a nun on a bus.

From the Orlando Sentinel:

Susman, a national correspondent who was Baghdad bureau chief for two years and spent 11 years covering Africa, said [airport president Larry] Dale insinuated that she and Searcey could be stowaways or terrorists with fake credentials. She said he shouted at her to sit down and be quiet. ...

"I really am not impressed by bullies," Susman said. "All I know is if they take advantage of me like that, they're taking worse advantage of others."

Pentagon cancels Rendon contract

The Pentagon has canceled a contract with the Rendon Group to develop profiles of reporters covering the military in the Afghanistan war zone, Stars and Stripes reports. The decision follows a week's worth of revelations from Stars and Stripes and elsewhere that the profiles, which rated reporters on whether they provided positive, negative or neutral coverage, were used to block at least two reporters from being embedded with military units.

If journalism loses its value, do journalists lose theirs as well?

James Rainey at the LA Times makes note of an interesting response to the news that two U.S. journalists had been sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for allegedly crossing the border into North Korea.

Rainey writes:

... a small but determined backlash took form, from a minority who say that reporters who go where they are not supposed to go get what they deserve. That's unsettling, but not surprising given a more insidious sentiment loose in the land: that journalists haven't earned and don't deserve any special privileges.

It's a populist nostrum that seeps into my e-mail basket and oozes from blogs and mainstream media websites with some regularity.

Although my blog is too small to be representative of a national trend, it stuck me that the only comment I received after Current TV reporter Euna Lee and Laura Ling were jailed came from someone who felt they deserved to be punished:

I believe the reporters broke the law and should pay the price. I have family members in the military and think this type of recklessness puts our military in harm’s way just so the reports (sic) can make some money.

Al Scal Guam USA

Clearly someone who's never seen a reporter's paycheck

As Rainy says, "The case of Ling and Lee provides the most recent reminder that some people passionately defend our freedoms, except when it becomes clear they won't come free." I'll let you work out the double meaning, but let's hope that the people who do sympathize with the two journalists take the time to consider why they went to China.

To that end, the Washington Post has a story today about the trafficking of women from North Korea to China that seems to be similar to what Lee and Ling were reporting on.

More jailed journalists

The case of jailed journalist Roxana Saberi has made headlines around the world, but two other journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, jailed in a different "axis of evil" country, have hardly received the same level of attention. Alan Mutter explains why. (Read the Associated Press story.)

Iran sentences U.S. journalist to 8 years in prison

An Iranian court today sentenced American-born journalist Roxana Saberi to eight years in prison after trying her in secret on charges of spying for the United States. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responded by saying she was "deeply disappointed" with the decision. An unnamed analyst told Reuters that the sentence "was likely to be commuted or reduced in a higher court."

The New York Times quotes an unnamed analyst saying the entire incident might be part of a plan to derail diplomatic talks between Iran and the United States.

From the NYT:

One political analyst in Iran, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate subject matter, said Ms. Saberi’s arrest could be part of the efforts by radical forces within the establishment who might be trying to sabotage any reconciliation with the United States.

“There have been similar efforts in the past to sabotage efforts that were aimed at resuming ties with the United States,” he said. “Her jailing might be part of the same efforts."

Time magazine's Scott MacLeod has some thoughts on the conviction here.