TAB Adds Legal Session to Newsroom Webinar Series

posted on 11.21.2022

TAB has added a new session, Texas Newsrooms and the Law, to its ongoing series of newsroom webinars this fall.

Stacy Allen, a partner with TAB’s Texas legal counsel, Jackson Walker LLP, and co-author of the TAB Newsroom Legal Guide, will provide the current legal landscape for Texas newsrooms in this FREE hour-long session on Wednesday, Dec. 14, at 11 am CT.

REGISTER HERE

The session is an excellent opportunity for newsroom managers and staff to learn how existing Texas law and recent court decisions have affected not only the newsgathering process but how news coverage is disseminated over-the-air, online, and digitally.  

Among the topics the webinar will cover:

• 2015 Third Party Allegations statute, a legislative clarification to existing Texas libel law in response to the disastrous 2013 Neely v. Wilson court decision
• 2013 Defamation Mitigation Act, Texas’ uniform corrections/retractions law
• 2011 Citizen Participation Act (and its 2019 amendments), Texas’ anti-SLAPP litigation law for early dismissal from libel cases
• 2009 Free Flow of Information Act, Texas’ reporter shield law protecting newsroom work product and preventing compelled testimony
• 1993 Interlocutory Appeal statute, a pre-trial dismissal appeal mechanism for newsroom cases
• The Texas Public Information Act and how it applies to various types of reporting

TAB has planned for plenty of Q&A time at the end of the presentation to answer attendees’ newsgathering legal questions on privacy, drones, trespass, illegal/improper photography, etc.

Previous Sessions Archived Online

The webinars are being recorded and are being made available for later viewing in the Video Archive portion of the Members section of www.tab.org. 

• TAB Members will need to login to view the archive page. 
• Forgot your password? Reset it here.
• Haven’t created a member account? No problem, create one now!  It’s easy and takes just a few moments.

One webinar from October and two from earlier this month led by Kevin Benz of KevinBenzNews.com and Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute have already been uploaded for viewing.  

Covering Polarized Issues, Knowing Your Story - Abortion, Immigration, Politics explored how journalists can better educate and inform audiences on polarizing issues, which will always be a part of the major coverage menu. 

Benz led the session using topics such as abortion, immigration and political coverage as examples to explore best practices when reporting on tough topics.

A second Benz session, Making the Right Call - The Principles of Journalism and How to Use Them, used real examples from Texas and elsewhere to get attendees thinking and reflecting more deeply about how they gather news.

This session discussed the four principles of journalism as created by the Poynter Institute’s Bob Steele and offered a very simple set of questions to ask in order to hold a newsroom accountable for its news coverage.

In the first of four sessions he will present for TAB stations, Fighting Fakes and Truth Decay, Poynter’s Tompkins showed attendees how fakers fake and how journalists can protect themselves against getting suckered in by fake claims, doctored photos, tampered tweets, suspect studies and polls that don’t hold water.  

Nov. 30 Session Targets Newsroom Managers

Benz will lead the final of his three TAB webinars, Covering More...With Less…Smarter, on Wednesday, Nov. 30, at 11 am CT.

This hour-long session is designed for newsroom managers who seek to pragmatically deal with the reality of having to do more with less staff and resources. 

Benz will discuss how newsrooms should be fundamentally changing news gathering approaches and rethinking how newsrooms are structured. 

REGISTER HERE

Questions? Contact TAB’s Michael Schneider or call (512) 322-9944.
 

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