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35 Media L. Notes 1 (2007)

handle is hein.journals/mdilwnts35 and id is 1 raw text is: MEDIA LAW NOTES Law & Policy Division, AEJMC Volume 35, No. 1 Winter 2007 Head Notes Legal Currents Tabloid Teaching Jennifer Jacobs Henderson Law & Policy Division Head Trinity University Jennifer. Henderson@trinity.edu Maybe you've read about it? Jennifer Anis- ton and Vince Vaughn have split. And, the catalyst for this real life break-up? A 22 year-old student on a study abroad program from my university. The story made front page news in the tab- loid magazine The Star, and even made the real news, Section A of our local newspaper, the San An- tonio Express-News. The Express-News and The Star stories included a yearbook photo of the young woman and quoted an e-mail sent by her to 22 of her sorority sisters which included details (not salacious, but personal) about her one-night stand with Vince. Shock Waves Across Campus Not surprisingly, this public revelation has sent shock waves across our campus, not as much for the student-Vince interaction as for the public nature in which it was presented to the world. As my stu- dents so nicely put it, the story is big on drama. Like you, I spend a great deal of time cau- tioning students about privacy (or, more accurately, the lack thereof) on the Internet. My first warnings several years ago targeted access to personal ex- changes using employer resources (ex: sending e-mail (Continued on page 5) News, Romance & Media Ethics Amy Gajda University offllinois agajda@law.uiuc.edu The sky is falling. I've been establishing myself as the division's scaremonger for a while now, telling everyone who would listen that there's major trouble brewing in privacy law. Remember the good old days when we could lawfully report that the man who rescued President Ford from an assassination attempt was gay (even if ethics might well have counseled other- wise)? Those days are gone. Privacy is back. Amy twjaa The latest evidence for my claim of the tort's phoenix-like rebirth is Benz v. Washington Newspaper Company, a decision by the federal district court in Washington, D.C., from September 29, 2006 (the same day the movie Dracula started filming in 1930, for those who enjoy poetic coincidence). The case is especially striking because the plain- tiff, Kathleen Benz, is herself an assignment editor for CNN. The Washington Observer column to which she objects named men whom Ms. Benz was said to have dated, including some high-profile Washington types. In addition to a defamation claim based on the newspaper's inclusion of some men she had never dated, she de- manded recovery for publication of private facts for the newspaper's accurate listing of other men, arguing that the public has no legitimate interest in her dates. You'll surely recall that the Restatement defini- tion of the publication of private facts tort absolves the (Continued on page 7)

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