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TRENTON, N.J. — With New Jersey’s Supreme Court Justices ruling 5-0 against her, www.xbiz.com reports that Too Much Media’s defamation lawsuit against blogger Shellee Hale moved forward.
Thus serving a warning to porn forums and those who comment on them, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that bloggers posting on message boards don’t have the same protections for sources as mainstream journalists.
The Court also rule that the state’s shield law for journalists does not apply to message boards because they are nothing more than forums for discussion and don’t fit the definition of news media as described by the law.
Writing for the court Justice C.J. Rabner said the Court doesn’t believe that everyone who posts a comment on an Internet message board shares an absolute privilege.
“As a result, even under the most liberal interpretation of the statute, Hale’s use of a message board to post her comments is not covered under [New Jersey’s] Shield Law.”
An earlier appeals concluded that Hale didn’t meet the statute’s standard.
“Simply put, new media should not be confused with news media,” wrote Superior Court Appellate Judge Anthony J. Parrillo at the time.
The appellate court went on to state that Hale didn’t identify herself as a reporter to her sources and that she didn’t contact Too Much Media to get their side of the story.
Contrary to her claims, Hale, said the appellate court, had “produced no notes of conversations, meetings or interviews with contacts or sources,” and contrary to her assertions that she was producing news, evidence showed she was merely assembling the writings and postings of others for her website.
She also failed to demonstrate an “adherenece to any standard of professional responsibility,” such as editing or fact-checking, and didn’t identify herself as a journalist to people she spoke with and assure them their identity would remain confidential, “a key factor in the application of the newsperson’s privilege,” Parrillo wrote.
In 2007 Hale began an anti-porn campaign and posted information on a website she developed called Pornafia.com.
Subsequently Hale attended adult entertainment industry conventions and created the personae, Sexyteaser and Sexyteaserguys, which she used to interact on various adult industry websites.
Hale later posted on Oprano that the New Jersey-based Too Much Media failed to inform customers of a security breach because she alleged it was making money off of it.
Hale’s posts in alleged that the breached data could have given hackers access to names and addresses of account holders.
Too Much Media sued Hale, alleging she defamed the company by claiming its principals, John Albright and Charles Berrebbi, threatened her and others.