Can the Supreme Court get you off the hook in J class?

The Supreme Court of Canada issued a new ruling on Tuesday which can help journalists, bloggers, and anyone else who circulates information to defend themselves against a libel lawsuit.

And here’s the kicker: they can do so even if some of their facts are found to be untrue, provided they show they tried to verify the facts and that the information is in the public interest.

Well, that sure levels the playing field a bit.

CBC is flagging the new defense, called “responsible communication”, as a benefit for Canadian journalists. But I’m not so sure.

Double-checking facts is one of the things that separates us journalists from any common Joe out there with a blog or a Twitter account. Checking our facts and sources before publishing means, more often than not, we get our stories right.

Sure, it may take a little longer for the news to get out to the public. Instead of simply hitting the “update” button on the Twitter page, we spend time confirming our information is accurate.

But I’m willing to wait, rather than take every story with a grain of salt, knowing it could be untrue.

When I read something in the Free Press, or head something on CBC radio, I could trust that what I was being told was accurate because, as journalists, it was their job to make sure they had their facts straight before going to air or putting the story to print.

I knew this wasn’t the case with what I read on Twitter, or someone’s blog, so when I visited these sites I made sure – as our journalism instructor Steve Vogelsang would say – I had my BS meter turned on.

The Supreme Court’s decision to allow journalists to defend untrue facts by pleading “responsible communication” means we no longer have this criteria by which to judge the news we see or hear.

You would have thought they’d have learned their lesson by now: inaccuracy can cause major problems.

Photo Credit.

Back in October 2008, a citizen journalist for CNN by the name of “johntw” mistakenly reported to the iReport website that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had just suffered a severe heart attack.

The story was quickly picked up by other mainstream media and sent the Twitterverse into a frenzy.

Within the first hour of trading on the day Steve Job’s heart attack was falsely reported, the market value of Apple went down $4.8 billion.

Whether “johntw” intended on creating this hoax, or was simply passing on a rumour and thought he’d beat the mainstream media to it, the dangerous effects of false reporting, especially in the technological age, remain.

Some, like the Toronto Star lawyer Paul Schabas, says it better reflects freedom of speech, and that may be so, but free speech comes with a price.

Too many Steve Jobs-like hoaxes can cause well established and credible news corporations like the CBC to lose their reputation and the public’s trust in them for quality news.

And if journalists start to make the same sloppy fact checking (or no checking at all) that frequent bloggers and tweeters alike, we will likely see more costly mistakes, all in the name of public interest.

Ultimately, it still comes down to whether the Supreme Court believes the information is in the public interest, and that the author tried to verify the facts.

While the new ruling does have the potential to be liberating, it would still be wise to tread carefully.

Continue to double-check your facts and sources.

The question is, just how many will?