Overview

Media Law for Canadian Journalists is an exciting new text written by Dean Jobb, a recognized authority on media law and a journalism professor. Media Law provides a unique perspective in that it is designed to make journalists more aware of their rights and the legal limits on their craft. It examines the day-to-day issues and problems faced by reporters, editors, writers, and journalists and offers practical advice on how to overcome these problems.

Using real-life examples and discussions of both criminal and civil law cases, the text explains the rationale behind the laws that affect the media, how those laws are interpreted, and what they mean for journalists. The text provides journalists with what they need to know to get the story — without getting sued.

Online Resources

Online resources for students and instructors using this book are available on the Law Commentary page of J-Source.ca.

Top ∧Features

• Provides the essentials about the Canadian justice system, and discusses the structure of Canadian courts and tribunals.
• Includes abundant examples of real-world legal situations journalists will find themselves having to address.
• Uses a simple, direct writing style, combined with numerous historic and current cases, scenarios, and legal precedents.
• Outlines a proactive model of media law, stressing how to publish while staying out of legal trouble.
• Examines freedom of expression and the Charter.
• Offers important tips on reporting criminal cases, and some of the pitfalls to avoid (double-checking facts and quotations, presenting both sides of the story, avoiding sensationalism and distortion, reporting prior convictions, and much more).
• Presents material in a manner that makes journalists aware of their rights, and the legal limitations in this profession.
• Includes the websites of many on-line legal resources.
• Focuses on ethics and professional responsibility and other contemporary ethical issues, including Internet law and publication bans.
• Includes a detailed index and glossary of terms.

Top ∧Testimonials

"I assigned the book to my media law and ethics class this past fall semester, and was delighted with it. It's at once more thorough and more practical than the text I was using before. Dean Jobb's book has really filled a need in Canadian Journalism Schools. So hats off to Dean and to everyone at Emond Montgomery who helped make it happen."
— Maxine Ruvinsky, PhD, Assistant Professor and Chair, School of Journalism, Thompson Rivers University Kamloops, B.C.

"Dean Jobb has taken a vast and complicated area of law and made it understandable to those who work for and with the media. Media Law for Canadian Journalists is distinguished in its field for being current, complete, practical, engaging and — no small feat — easy to read.
— James Rossiter, lawyer, Wickwire Holm, Halifax, N.S.

"Media Law is a book that newsrooms and journalism schools can ill afford to do without. Jobb has done an excellent job of providing a resource that helps make sense of the legal world journalists inevitably encounter."
— David McKie, journalist with CBC's Investigative Unit, and editor of the Canadian Association of Journalists' Media magazine

"Dean Jobb's text Media Law for Canadian Journalists is an example of instructive and engaging writing, borne and developed over time. The ideas and methodology are drawn from Dean's 15 years of teaching media law and justice system fundamentals to journalism students, and more than 20 years as an award-winning newspaper reporter."
— Lisa Taylor, instructor in the Journalism program at the University of King's College, and lawyer with Merrick Jamieson Sterns Washington & Mahody