Table of Contents

PART 1 DIGITAL LEGAL LITERACY
1. Media law in the digital era
2. Free expression and mindful practice
3. The legal system

PART 2 ISSUES IN JUSTICE AND TRANSPARENCY
4. Open justice and freedom of information
5. Contempt of Court
6. Covering court

PART 3 THE MEDIA AND REPUTATIONS
7. Identifying defamation
8. Defending defamation

PART 4 SECRETS, TERROR AND DISCRIMINATION
9. Keeping secrets: Confidentiality and sources
10. Anti-terrorism and hate laws

PART 5 KEY ISSUES FOR THE DIGITAL ERA
11. Intellectual property: Protecting your work and using the work of others
12. Privacy
13. The law of PR, freelancing and media entrepreneurship

Appendix 1: MEAA Code of Ethics
Appendix 2: Australian Press Council Statement of Principles
Index

About the Author

Mark Pearson (BA, DipEd, MLitt, LLM, PhD) is Professor of Journalism and Social Media at Griffith University in Queensland, where he is a member of the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research. He is author of Blogging and Tweeting Without Getting Sued (Allen & Unwin, 2012) and co-editor of Mindful Journalism and News Ethics in the Digital Era: A Buddhist Approach (with Shelton A. Gunaratne and Sugath Senarath, Routledge, 2015), and Courts and the Media: Challenges in the Era of Digital and Social Media (with Patrick Keyzer and Jane Johnston, Halstead Press, 2012). He has worked as a journalist with several media organisations, including The Australian. He blogs from journlaw.com and tweets from @journlaw.

Mark Polden is a Sydney barrister. After ten years in the media law practice group of a national law firm, and then as in-house counsel for Fairfax Media for the best part of two decades, he now advises and acts for Australian and international print, broadcast and online media, film and television production houses and for private clients.

Reviews

'Whether you're an MSM editor or reporter, a blogger, a tweeter or a personal brand, this book might save your bacon.' - Jonathan Holmes, former ABC Media Watch host

'The leading text book from which most journos learned their law' - Margaret Simons, associate professor in journalism, Monash University