TAB Newsroom Legal Webinar Set for Today

posted on 12.12.2022

There are still a few hours to REGISTER for the final webinar in TAB’s fall newsroom webinar series. 

Texas Newsrooms and the Law, takes place today, Dec. 14, at 11am CT.

Stacy Allen, a partner with TAB’s Texas legal counsel, Jackson Walker LLP, and co-author of the TAB Newsroom Legal Guide, will discuss 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.

Newsroom Webinars Archived For Online Viewing

TAB is recording the newsroom webinar series and archiving it online for viewing in the Members section of www.tab.org. 

Kevin Benz, a former RTDNA chairman and veteran of several Texas newsrooms, has three sessions available 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. 

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, and offered a very simple set of questions to ask to hold a newsroom accountable for its news coverage.

Covering More...With Less…Smarter, discussed how newsroom managers can deal with the reality of having to do more with less staff and resources by fundamentally changing news gathering approaches and rethinking how newsrooms are structured. 

Poynter’s Al Tompkins has two sessions available for viewing.

Fighting Fakes and Truth Decay, shows 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.  

Tompkins was joined by his wife Sidney, a licensed psychotherapist with decades of experience, to present Managing Newsroom Stress and Trauma. 

This session provided techniques for dealing with the stress and trauma affecting today’s journalists. 

Keeping the Keepers, addresses the journalist burnout that is creating staff retention problems throughout the country by examining the key motivators for why people stay in a job and why they leave.

The final Tompkins session, Interviewing Essentials, covered the best practices for interviews in the newsgathering process.

Want to see them?

• 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.

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

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