Student editors face legal exposure [The Janesville Gazette, Wis.]
By Frank Schultz, The Janesville Gazette, Wis. | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
The suit named her, as editor of the UW-Whitewater student newspaper, as being responsible for articles published two years earlier.
Behling then found out the university would not represent her in court.
The story reveals the largely unrecognized legal liability that college journalists face and the strange relationships between colleges and their student newspapers.</p>
The relationships put student journalists in danger of being sued, and that threat could have chilling effects on their journalistic efforts--as it has in this case.
The story begins in 2011 when the UW-W student paper, The Royal Purple, published articles about university faculty member
The articles repeated allegations made in court documents, which alleged Shi had made threatening comments to colleagues. Those allegations and others led to Shi being banned from campus and later fired, according to court documents.
Court documents indicate Shi had difficulties with colleagues and superiors, and the statements he was accused of making apparently reflected his frustrations with that situation.
Shi appealed his firing, and that lawsuit is now before the state District 4
Shi, representing himself, filed a separate lawsuit against Behling in
Behling was not editor when the articles were published, but she is editor now, and that is why Shi sued her.
"I have to name the current top officer as the entity for my litigation," Shi said in an email, and Behling happened to be the editor at the time he filed his suit.
Shi said in an email that he tried to resolve the matter before taking it to court.
Behling said Shi had approached her in summer 2012 and asked her to publish a follow-up article. He apparently wanted it known that the 2011 allegations had been found to be without merit.
Behling said the UW-W administration would not comment, so she decided not to publish a story that did not have the administration's side of the story and could not verify Shi's side.
Shi kept asking what was going on with the article, and the newspaper's adviser at the time, a faculty member, advised her not to respond, saying Shi would go away, Behling said.
Shi's last message to Behling was "I'll see you in court," Behling said. That day, she took the old articles off the newspaper's website.
Months later, Behling received the court summons.
She went to
"I thought this was something the university would deal with," Behling said.
She called the
Behling turned to UW-W Vice Chancellor
"
Behling was feeling desperate. It didn't help that this came the same week as final exams.
"There were a lot of tears," she said.
Behling said she went to the chancellor's office unannounced and told them, "You guys need to help me."
Arnold and Chancellor
In the paper's last edition that spring, Behling published a retraction, just to be safe, she said.
Coley, meanwhile, bargained with Shi, offering him publication of a letter to the editor in the fall. Shi did not agree, but he asked for financial statements from Behling, the Royal Purple and Behling's parents, Behling said.
The suit went to a
The judge dismissed the case, but Shi appealed, and the appeal is pending.
Coley agreed to represent Behling for the appeal only if she paid a fee and if the Royal Purple would buy libel insurance, Behling said.
Hixson told her the Royal Purple could pay the
University officials would not comment on the events surrounding the suit against Behling, on advice of the UW System's legal counsel.
The university provides offices and pays utilities for the paper. It provides an adviser, covers the paper's printing costs and handles the paper's accounts, officials said.
But the university is not the paper's publisher. It doesn't exercise editorial control, said university spokeswoman
The UW System's general counsel's office says student organizations are not directly a part of the system, so the system cannot represent them, Arnold told The Gazette.
The relationship between the paper and university is odd but not unusual, said
A university cannot be a student newspaper's publisher because that would take away the paper's editorial independence, LoMonte said.
When lawsuits against universities get to court, the judge always throws them out because the universities can't be held responsible for the newspapers' content, LoMonte said. Then the people bringing lawsuits see the papers have no money, and the cases are dropped.
Except in this case.
LoMonte said it's unheard of for an editor to be sued for something that didn't happen on her watch.
"At end of the day, I think that she'll quite clearly be able to escape personal liability because she had no connection to the defamatory statements," LoMonte said. "... But, unfortunately, she's going to have to go through the motions of fighting it in court to prove that."
Looking back, Behling thinks it was irresponsible for the paper not to have libel insurance, but LoMonte said many student papers don't have it.
The problem with insurance is that it could make the paper a target because the insurance could pay where the paper could not, LoMonte said.
The Royal Purple faculty adviser,
"I guarantee you they are not aware of that structure, and that's something they need to be aware of," Terracina-Hartman said.
Staff reporters who work for the paper as part of a university class have some legal protection from the university, but editors do not, said Terracina-Hartman, who has been associated with several student publications at universities.
Behling, meanwhile, is still the editor, and she said this experience has made her careful about choosing news article topics.
She said she asked her staff to talk to her if they're not comfortable about putting something in the paper. She's nervous about editorials, too.
"We're almost trying to avoid any possible situation that would have an outcome that would anger someone," she said.
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(c)2013 The Janesville Gazette (Janesville, Wis.)
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