The Power and Purpose of Citizen Journalists: The Baltimore SWAT Standoff and the Belize Mystery Surrounding John McAfee as Two Examples of Why We Need Citizen Journalists

Citizen journalism may not be respected by traditionally educated and trained journalists, but citizen journalists sure seem to be making lots of headway in reporting news via the web.

I've been watching and reading citizen journalism for awhile now, with growing respect.  Why?  Well, because some people are doing this at the risk of their lives - like citizen journalist Rami Ahmad Al-Sayed who died when he was only 27 years old, leaving behind a wife and young daughter, in order to spread the word over the internet about the military assault he was witnessing first hand in Homs, Syria.

Critics snub the idea of citizen journalists for various reasons:  first, their work does not reach the same level of quality as the professional journalist.  They are amateurs.   Second, citizen journalists cannot be trusted to be objective.  They are biased.  Third, citizen journalists aren't regulated - they have no set of rules or ethical codes imposed upon them as do members of the main stream media.  They are rogues.  

I understand that professionals who have studied in their field for years and thereafter dedicated years of their lives to journalism as a career path aren't too happy with these interlopers.  As an attorney who has seen the practice of law change to allow non-lawyers to practice law in some ways, I get it.

However, when it comes to citizen journalists, I don't care.

I don't trust the main stream media (MSM) much these days -- for one thing, the same finger pointing that is made against citizen journalists has been made much too often against members of the Fourth Estate in recent years for me to blindly trust today's news media.

What?  If you want to delve more into the sad failures of modern, professional journalism then I suggest you check out Joseph Campbell's 2010 book, Getting It Wrong: Ten of the Greatest Misreported Stories in American Journalism - which you can read for free at Google Books (at least you could when I typed this).  Or read the witty column in today's Gawker by Hamilton Nolan, "Mainstream Media Attack Dogs Think We're Asking Too Many Questions About Orange Pie."  It pretty much sums things up.

There's room in my world for both types of journalism, and maybe that's how things should be.  Here are two examples of citizen journalists blogging online that I've been following this week.

The Baltimore SWAT Standoff Blogger

Frank James MacArthur considers himself to be a citizen journalist when he isn't driving a cab up in Baltimore and he writes a blog called "The Baltimore Spectator."  Recently, after MacArthur didn't show in court for a violation of probation hearing on an old weapons charge, the police showed up at his house to issue a warrant.

MacArthur didn't cooperate, and it turned into a five hour standoff.  SWAT was called, but things ended peacefully at 11 pm which MacArthur stated that he intended to coordinate with the evening television news.

Now, sure, MacArthur may have done some of this in order to spotlight his citizen journalist site.  However, MacArthur also had a serious distrust of local law enforcement and chronicled the events as they transpired on the web for what he viewed as his own self-protection.

Belize Murder Investigation and The Mysterious John McAfee

Meanwhile, for a few weeks now the founder of a popular computer security software company, John McAfee, remains at large even though there were reports earlier today that he had been arrested at the Belize-Mexico border.  John McAfee has been blogging his story on the internet as he remains out of the hands of Belize police who are seeking custody of Mr. McAfee as a person of interest in the murder of McAfee's next-door neighbor.  McAfee's blog is "Who is McAfee?"

John McAfee is blogging about his successes in evading capture by the local authorities as well as his concerns that if he is taken by Belize police he will be harmed or killed - and this continuing story is making national news basically because of McAfee's own reporting of events thus far.

Belize police officials are calling McAfee "paranoid."  John McAfee's blog posts, however, don't seem to be the rambling, irrational posts of someone who is mentally ill.  His position is that he believed that if he had peacefully cooperated with police at the get-go, he might be killed.

I believe that blogging is important, but never more so than in situations like this, where individual citizens are sharing their stories - as they happen - with the public at large.  Maybe they aren't the most objective reports; maybe they aren't written as well as they could be; and maybe there's no set of rules or guidelines applicable to their work.

However, in both of these blogging stories by citizen journalists, you have first-hand accounts of what local law enforcement is doing, or not doing, together with the interpretation of those events by the suspect of that police power action. 

I want to read this.  I think lots of people do. I think we need the citizen journalist and I hope that citizen journalism becomes more respected, and protected, over time.    

Citizen journalists blogging on the internet (and I include micro-blogging at Twitter) bring information  to the reader that professional journalists don't provide.  Perhaps they can't provide it, I'll have to ponder that one.

As for the expansion of the police power through technological advances, and how privacy rights are endangered today and Big Brother scenarios are rapidly becoming reality, I'll write about that on my opinion blog soon enough.

Tweets as Evidence: Here's my Twitter at Trial Article in Florida Defender

One of my more popular posts over time is one I wrote back in February 2011 entitled "Tweets as Evidence: Authenticating and Admitting Twitter Tweets and Facebook Pokes."  It's very short and sweet but lots of folk seem to be interested in the topic and I've received several emails on this issue.

So, thought I would share my article published in the Winter 2012 issue of the Florida Defender entitled, "Twitter at Trial: Tweets and Messages as Evidence in 2011." 

The Florida Defender is a quarterly publication provided to a readership of lawyers and judges by the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and as always, I am honored to be included in their magazine.

You can read it online here, or download the pdf.

Bloggers and Anonymous Commenters Sued for Defamation by Cooley Law School

Defamation claims against bloggers may be on the rise, and it may be that lawyers, law firms, and law students are providing an online prototype for others interested in suing bloggers for alleged defamatory conduct.  Seems that a story that has been brewing on the web for months now just got some big, national exposure today as the National Law Journal (and Law.Com) have published an article entitled, "Ripping a critic's mask off: A law school fought to learn the secret identity of an ex-student blogger," written by Karen Sloan.

Blogger Rockstar05 and Anonymous Commenters Sued for Defamation by Cooley Law School

In the National Law Journal piece, readers are given a blow-by-blow of Thomas M. Cooley Law School's ongoing litigation against an anonymous blogger publishing under the moniker of Rockstar05 and three other anonymous defendants (at least two of which are those leaving comments to Rockstar05's post, with another leaving a comment at the Huffington Post), a suit filed by the law school asserting the school has been defamed by the defendants via the words that they wrote online.  The law school is also suing a New York law firm, one of its partners and another lawyer working there, for "trolling" websites under the guise of investigating a class action while "...posting false and defamatory statements about Cooley on various public websites."  Complaint in Cause No. 11780, pp. 1-2 (full copy here).

Rockstar05 is fighting against his or her name being revealed; there's a gag order in place right now on Rockstar05's identity, although Cooley's counsel knows who Rockstar05 is (and so does Karen Sloan of the NLJ, who interviewed Rockstar05 for her article).  What did Rockstar05 do, exactly?

Rockstar05, according to Cooley's complaint, wrote a post entitled, "the Thomas M. Cooley Law School Scam," which can be read in its entirety as Exhibit B to the Cooley pleading (full copy here). 

Public Citizen Has Filed an Amicus Brief in the Cooley Law School Case, Arguing Application of Dendrite Int'l.

Also contributing to the national import of this growing story is the amicus curiae ("friend of the court") brief filed by Public Citizen, a nationally-known consumer rights group.  In its brief, Public Citizen argues for the First Amendment rights of anonymous bloggers, citing to Dendrite International Inc. v. Doe No. 3, et al., where the New Jersey courts have defined a set of guidelines for trial courts "...faced with an application by a plaintiff for expedited discovery seeking an order compelling an ISP [ internet service provider] to honor a subpoena and disclose the identity of anonymous Internet posters who are sued for allegedly violating the rights of individuals, corporations, or businesses...."

Among the standards set by Dendrite Int'l, the burden of the plaintiff to establish:

... that its action can withstand a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted pursuant to R. 4:6-2(f), the plaintiff must produce sufficient evidence supporting each element of its cause of action, on a prima facie basis, prior to a court ordering the disclosure of the identity of the unnamed defendant.
Finally, assuming the court concludes that the plaintiff has presented a prima facie cause of action, the court must balance the defendant's First Amendment right of anonymous free speech against the strength of the prima facie case presented and the necessity for the disclosure of the anonymous defendant's identity to allow the plaintiff to properly proceed.

This is a big deal - and while Michigan isn't required to follow New Jersey, the opinion is well thought out and does recognize the free speech interests at stake when bloggers are sued for what they have written.

October 24th Hearing On Merits of the Defamation Suit

Right now, there is a setting on October 24, 2011, where the law school's law suit against Rockstar05 and the John Doe defendants will go forward.  More and more eyes are watching this case, and there is some commentary already that by filing this suit, Cooley has actually given the controversial words a lot more exposure than they would have had otherwise, by filing this lawsuit.

For details on the suit, you can read the press release by Cooley as well as the petitions that have been filed (pdfs available for reading and downloading at the Cooley Law School site). 

For more commentary, consider:

Professor Turley, who points out the Pandora's Box of discovery that Cooley Law School may have opened for itself.

Tweets as Evidence: Authenticating and Admitting Twitter Tweets and Facebook Pokes

The State Bar of Texas has been offering continuing legal education for awhile now on how attorneys can use tweets as evidence.  That's right: the 140 character tweets (or retweets) that millions are publishing on Twitter 24/7, and sharing with more and more followers, will be appearing in the future as evidence for jurors to consider in their deliberations.


Next month, a replay is being offered by the Texas Bar of a Summer 2010 presentation entitled "Authenticating Tweets: Use and Admission of Social Networking Evidence," where attorney John Browning of Dallas shared with his fellow Texas lawyers all about not only authenticating tweets but getting them admitted into evidence under both state and federal law.  (Of course, we all know that authentication and admission are two different hurdles ....)

2012 UPDATE:  See my article in Florida Defender, "Twitter at Trial: Tweets and Messages as Evidence 2011"  which includes discussion of evidentiary rules and issues of admissibility and authentication.

It also looks like Mr. Browning will be covering more than just Twitter - the outline of his speech references Facebook pokes, as well as a general discussion of social media as fodder for discovery and evidence in civil cases.  He should know: John Browning has also written a book on the legal ramifications of social media entitled The Lawyer's Guide to Social Networking: Understanding Social Media's Impact on the Law published by West in December 2010.

Of course, this isn't news to some.  Paris Hilton faced having her tweets used by Las Vegas prosecutors in the drug charges she faced last year.  But then again, Paris Hilton is always trendy right?


For more on authentication and admissibility of social media:

1. New Jersey Criminal Defense Lawyer - using tweets, Facebook pix in NJ criminal trials
2. South Carolina Family Law Blog - using social media in family law cases
3. U.S. Department of Justice  - Directives on use of socia media in the courtroom