NYSBA creates task force to support local journalism

The New York State Bar Association has set up a task force on how to deal with the issues that local journalism faces. The aim of the Association is to provide a legal perspective to journalism and bring together diverse people and ideas to form the media and media law.

“Local journalism simply means those entities which are not covering national politics and international affairs…as their principal role, but are in fact covering the Albany City Council, the Elmira Fire Department…anybody who is trying to look at the news that happens ground level in the state, and in their communities…,” said David McCraw, Deputy General Counsel for the New York Times.

The Association will further examine local news, the environment in which it operates and the current financial status in order to preserve community news coverage.

To support these efforts, the Rethinking Libel Law in a New Era of Journalism event will be held at the Bar Center on Elk Street Dec. 10 from 6 to 8 p.m. the event will host a talk with Margaret Sullivan, a media columnist at the Washington Post, and Joseph Finnerty from Finnerty, Osterreicher & Abdulla. Following this, a roundtable discussion will take place with various lawyers, and Rex Smith, the editor for the Times Union.

Additionally, the task force created by NYSBA will also be hosting public events as a way to get a larger audience involved in these efforts.

The task force intends to conduct research through 2019 and into 2020.

The task force is co-chaired by McCraw and Cynthia Arato, Partner at Shapiro Arato Bach LLP. “If you have towns and cities where journalistic organizations are not as strong and financially liable as they once were, the ultimate harm is stuck by citizens who don’t have access to information they otherwise would have,” said McCraw.