In an interesting sign of the times, the New York times reports that Time Magazine was scooped by its own reporter when he twittered about Andre Agassi’s admission of drug use in his forthcoming autobiography Open. Richard Deitsch, the Sports Illustrated reporter to whom the premature tweet was attributed subsequently deleted it, but the legal protection presumably attached to the right of first publication had arguably evaporated. See Harper and Row Publishers Inc. v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 (1985) for the Supreme Court’s analysis on another case in which Time was scooped.
Time Inc., the magazine publisher owned by Time Warner, had bought the rights to run excerpts from the book in Sports Illustrated and People, a deal aimed at breaking the news to a worldwide audience. But the day before the magazines were to publish, a writer for Sports Illustrated prematurely revealed on Twitter Mr. Agassi’s admission to drug use.
It raises some potentially messy questions for news organizations going forward. Once upon a time, the centrality of the process of publication in the news business – both in terms of the apparatus of reputation and the prohibitively expensive production costs – made the magazine indispensable. This incident raises the spectre of a likely more and more frequently common quandary – your average reporter is now balancing the interests of more than one brand – the paper he’s writing for but also his own. As more reporters freelance, it’s likely to be less clear what hat is being worn when the next big piece of news is uncovered. Will work-for-hire doctrines cover be flexible enough to protect news organization’s investment while leaving free agent reporters free to earn their livelihood? Would something stronger be necessary? At the very least the mainstreaming of these technologies need to be addressed with coherent policies and any employees educated on the potential consequences of using them in particular contexts. Even then the cases can’t be far behind.
- Tim Arango, A Magazine’s Scoop Is Scooped by Its Reporter, New York Times (November 8, 2009)
- Alex Tresniowski, Andre Agassi: I Used Crystal Meth, People Magazine (October 27, 2009)
- Andre Agassi, ‘I Hate Tennis‘, Sports Illustrated (Oct. 30, 2009)
- Bridget Daly, Andre Agassi Confesses to Meth Use, Hollywood Scoop (October 27, 2009)
- RT @richarddeitsch: There’s an off-the-charts book excerpt from Andre Agassi soon in SI: He admits to taking crystal meth during his career.
Related posts:
Recent Comments