Thoughts on insurance, websites, and constitutional rights (that have nothing to do with Obamacare)

Insurance jingles are terribly catchy. The other day, I was trying to explain the concept of a slogan to my nine-year-old, and the first three examples that came to mind were from insurance commercials. All together, now: “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there,” “Nationwide is on your side,” and “We are Farmers. Bum ba dum, bum bum bum bum.”

She sang that darn Farmers riff all day long.

Needless to say, the insurance companies have our attention, and that is by design.  With the world changing as rapidly as it is, there is a whole new spectrum of assets in need of protection—SpaceShipOne, Troy Polamalu’s locks, blogs—and a whole new spectrum of risky, audacious behaviors being incentivized as a result—space tourism, tackling by hair, journalism.

Last week, the University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication announced that it purchased multimedia liability insurance for all of its students.  This million-dollar policy protects against claims of libel, copyright infringement, and invasion of privacy filed against student work.

“It used to be that occasionally students would be published, but students are blogging, tweeting and everybody is a publisher,” Media Law professor Cathy Packer told The Daily Tarheel.

In journalism and communication schools all over the country, assignments that once were for professors’ eyes only are now published on class websites.  Some programs mandate an online digital portfolio as part of the capstone project or graduation requirements; most employers expect to be able to link to sample work.

“Every student who wants to work in media should put together an online portfolio,” writes Dan Reimold of Saint Joseph’s University.  Which means that every student who learns-by-doing finds herself at risk.

Last July in Durham, North Carolina, just down the road from UNC, attorney John D. Haywood filed a lawsuit against two students at St. Michael’s College in Vermont for a profile that appeared on their class website at the beginning of the year.  Haywood, one of thirteen candidates who ran against Barack Obama in the 2012 New Hampshire Democratic primary, claimed the profile was damaging and “without a doubt” cost him votes.  According to the Student Press Law Center, the case was dismissed in January 2013 under Vermont’s anti-SLAPP statute, which attempts to control the chilling effect of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. 

This type of statue protects journalists in twenty-seven states.  There is no federal anti-SLAPP law.  Insurance protects against court costs for libel and invasion of privacy suits in jurisdictions where legislature or judicial precedence do not.  “It’s becoming more important for everyone who practices journalism to be familiar with the laws,” David Ardia of UNC’s Center for Media Law and Policy told The Daily Tarheel.

Learning the core laws, ethics, and standards of the profession, writes the Knight Foundation’s Eric Newton in Searchlights and Sunglasses, “is even more important now because new technology allows everyone to act as a journalist.” For those who create digital media at home (or at school) without the protections of a parent company, homeowner’s or renter’s insurance, or a personal-injury or umbrella policy, may cover content-based lawsuits, safeguarding uncompensated journalists in somewhat the same manner as UNC’s new insurance policy protects student reporters.

The pilot program at UNC will be one to watch, and hopefully faculty there will use this investment as an opportunity to educate not only journalism students but also other community members about changing laws and potential pitfalls in the tech-based reporting landscape.  Craig Newman, who chairs of the National Board of Advisors of the Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication at Arizona State University, has called for  this type of legal instruction in both journalism and law schools.  In an opinion piece for the Columbia Journalism Review, Newman wrote, “It is imperative that schools provide this help if the media are to remain independent watchdogs, keeping government honest and the public informed.”

There is no moral hazard here, although there is risky, audacious behavior. UNC is creating incentives for students not only to learn about journalism but also to commit acts of journalism. By insuring students, UNC helps ensure that they will have freedom—freedom, as Newton puts it, to “practice innovative real-world digital newsgathering” and “report stories that help right wrongs.”

Not to sound like a commercial, but it's good to know these student journalists are in... good hands. Bum ba dum, bum bum bum bum.

Occam’s razor cuts deep in North Carolina: Persuasion and Amendment One

Contrary to popular belief, lawyers don’t always get out of jury duty. Last fall, after spending three days on a criminal trial, I finally figured out why the Assistant District Attorney didn’t even consider excusing me. His closing argument included a legal theory that he wanted the jury to apply to our case. This theory allowed us to make assumptions based on circumstantial evidence rather than requiring the usual proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Having me (and another attorney) on the panel ensured that there were at least two people among those deliberating who accepted – and would apply – the idea as needed.

Even so, as I sat in the jury room, I had a hard time grappling with the fact that someone’s fate depended on a shortcut.

Life doesn't take place in a jury room. Having weathered the campaigns for and against Amendment One, North Carolinians need no reminding that most of life’s deliberations do not take place behind closed doors – nor amid people with a range of backgrounds and worldviews, with cell phones and social media turned off, until we reach unanimity.

As busy citizens, we don’t have time for that. Nor does it sound like a very pleasant way to make tough decisions. (If it did, we would line up for jury duty rather than being summoned.) And so we struggle alone with unfamiliar and complex ideas.  We absorb information on the fly. We look for shortcuts.

When arguments challenge our beliefs, we find it easier to ignore, eliminate, or subconsciously devalue the opposition. We seek comfort in those who share our existing attitudes. (By the way, it took Leon Festinger two decades to develop Cognitive Dissonance Theory, a complex psychological premise that I just attempted to simplify into two dozen words.)

In the debate about the constitutional amendment on Tuesday’s ballot, we were aided in this process by campaign slogans and games of semantics. On the one side, "Holy Matrimony" and VoteforMarriageNC.com. On the other, "Amendment One Harms Children" and ProtectNCFamilies.org. These make for better bumper stickers, yard signs, t-shirts and URLs than “I support/oppose marriage between one man and one woman being the only valid and recognized domestic legal union in this State.”

But campaigns – political, ideological and otherwise – don’t deal in complexity. People who design them understand that every word they say / publish / post must pass through myriad filters of personal experience. Therefore, the fewer words the better. Instead of giving audiences all the information (even though that is what we claim to want), campaigns establish associations in the audience’s minds that are short-cut dependent, e.g., "Marriage is under attack" or "Domestic violence protections will disappear." Then as they develop, they build on that association, inviting the audience to participate – in material or virtual ways – by tying identity to outcome.

The goal of a campaign is to make us feel as if we are no longer struggling alone.

And we, as audience members with sensitive psyches averse to conflict, join willingly, closing ourselves off to the other side. In the end, we persuade ourselves as much as we are persuaded.

This process also transforms the world into us vs. them. Those on our side, or those attempting to defeat us. FOR the Marriage Amendment, or AGAINST Amendment One. Victorious, or devastated.

And that’s a problem, because as one Queens colleague tells first-year students in her Modern Citizenship class, “We do not live in an either-or world. We live in an and-also world.” No matter what the Republican and Democratic National Committees would have us believe, there are more than two sides to every debate.

But we have to look for the third, fourth, fifth point of view. It isn’t handed to us, and it’s never simple.

Reporter and media critic Brooke Gladstone recommends that audiences look beyond just conservative and liberal when identifying predisposition or prejudice. She writes this of what she calls status quo bias: “Human beings tend to oppose change unless the benefits are guaranteed to be huge – and the risks miniscule.”

The campaign that led to the passing of Amendment One on May 8 demonstrated how difficult it is to guarantee the unknown. The appeal of an unfamiliar and complex future pales in comparison to that of the effortless sound bite. We aren’t programmed to accept anything more without a struggle.

In communication – as in the courtroom – the side with the simplest story always has the advantage.

And now, North Carolinians must grapple with the fact that 222,000 families' fates are dependent on this legal shortcut.  As interconnected citizens, we can no longer afford to avoid the time and effort required for jury-like deliberations – amid people with a range of backgrounds and world views, with cell phones and social media turned off, until we reach a place of compromise, overcoming differences, recognizing both the risks and the benefits of change.