Media Law and Privacy Exam Review

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering privacy torts, First Amendment case law, statutory rights, and judicial remedies for media law exam preparation.

What is the definition of Privacy?

“The right to be left alone.”

Four Areas of Invasion of Privacy

Publication of Private Facts, False Light, Intrusion, and Appropriation.

What Amendment recognizes the right to privacy?

The 4th Amendment

Broadly speaking, the Constitution protects from government intrusion places and personal effects in which a citizen has a…

‘Reasonable expectation of privacy.’

Common Law and Statutes…

protect a citizen’s spatial or physical privacy from snooping, peeping, and secret electronic and photographic surveillance.

“Unlike a libel plaintive, the private-facts plaintive does not…

sue for lost reputation resulting from false statements.

Successful private-facts plaintive sue over…

publication of truthful information that is so intimate that revelation robs them of a part of their personality.

Highly Offensive Disclosure of Private Information

The legal standard requiring a plaintiff to establish that the publicized information is in fact private and that dissemination of that information is highly offensive to the average person.

Defenses to Appropriation

The three recognized defenses against an appropriation lawsuit: Newsworthiness, Consent, and Incidental advertising.

Incidental Advertising

A defense to appropriation where publishers and broadcasters promote themselves using previously published content, which does not imply the featured person has endorsed the publication.

Newsworthiness

A legal defense measured along a sliding scale of competing interests: an individual's right to keep private facts from the public's gaze versus the public's right to know.

Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn (1975)

A U.S. Supreme Court case that ruled 8-1 establishing nearly complete First Amendment protection for the media to report information obtained from official records available in an open courtroom.

Florida Star v. B.J.F. (1989)

A Supreme Court ruling establishing that the First Amendment protects the publication of lawfully acquired, truthful information about a matter of public importance unless restricting publication furthers a state interest of the highest order.

Le Mistral v. CBS

A case upholding an intrusion claim against a television camera crew that burst into a restaurant with cameras rolling and television lights ablaze, exceeding implied consent and unreasonably disrupting patrons.

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)

A federal law enacted in 1967 that provides the public the right to request access to records from any federal agency, requiring disclosure unless the material falls under one of nine specific exemptions.

Free Press vs. Fair Trial

The constitutional conflict pitting First Amendment freedom of the press against Sixth Amendment guarantees of a fair trial by an impartial jury.

Pretrial Prejudicial Publicity Remedies

The eight remedies available to a trial judge established in Sheppard v. Maxwell (1966): change of venue, change of venire, continuance, severance, voir dire, sequestration, judicial admonition, and new trial.