Outline
NBC is using journalist privilege to cover up the fact that they tarnished Mr. Clarks and Brokers Choice of America (BOA) name by stripping him of his credibility, and journalist privilege although important cannot be used as a scapegoat for violating someone’s first amendment right. The goal is to focus on how NBC defamed Mr. Clark and BOA by running a story that was retrieved through questionable means that were said to be protected under a journalist privilege, and this could ultimately create a slippery slope for what other first amendment rights can be violated in the name of journalist privilege. Libel is a difficult thing to prove but the goal is to prove that NBC published, false, injurious, unprivileged information about Mr. Clark thus hurting his reputation. To successfully prove libel all of these things must be proven.
• Published- NBC published the information to the world in the dateline publication “tricks of the trade” that was extremely damaging to Mr. Clarks image and career.
• False- Mr. Clark felt unjustly accused of essentially running s scam business due to short videos compiled together to support this claim.
• Injurious- the information published not only hurt Mr. Clark’s image but his business as well.
• Unprivileged- only 112 words of a seminar lasting two days were used to showcase Mr. Clark and his company’s policies in a negative light. To see if the seminars were truly as corrupt as NBC made them out to be the entire videos could have been used and not just snippets of these videos equaling only 112 words.
Justices that might be sympathetic to BCA side of the case are Byron White, William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall, and possibly Lewis Powell since they seem to be the most liberal justices out of a very conservative court.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_F._Powell,_Jr. (image)

I’m Lewis F. Powell and I was a justice for the Supreme Court for 15 years (1972-1987) and during that time I became known as the swing vote moderate that always put the case before my own ideas. My role as the unifier in an ideological divided court will probably go down in history as one of my greatest accomplishments along with the Powell Memorandum which has become an important document for the U.S chamber of commerce who was forced to update their policies when dealing with and lobbying the federal government. I started my career as a lawyer for a private firm them joined the Army Air Corps intelligence unit during World War II, and after World War II I returned to my home in Richmond, Virginia and continued to practice law and in 1964 I was elected to the National Bar Association where both my reputation as the moderate started. With this new national stage and new reputation I was approached by the Nixon administration (who I later voted against in United States v Nixon) in 1969 to join the U.S Supreme Court but I refused and two years later when the Nixon administration asked again I accepted.
During my time in the U.S Supreme Court I decided over many important cases such as Roe v Wade, United Sates v Nixon, Buckley v. Valeo, and Regents of the U. of California v. Bakke. Early in my career as a Supreme Court justice it was made evident that my views were difficult to pinpoint often making me the swing vote for these very important cases such as Regents of the U. of California v. Bakke where I was the deciding vote in this 5-4 decision that ruled affirmative action is constitutional racial quotas are not. Although I hold moderate/conservative views I tended to vote in a more moderate/ liberal fashion due to the cases and time period I was a justice in, because ultimately my job was to vote for the good of the people, the nation, and the law .So when it comes to the first amendment I feel the amendment is needed and important for the function of the democracy but has the potential to undermine the authority of the government by offering too many rights to the people, but in the end I will vote to up hold and protect the people’s rights under this piece of legislation. Since in the end my job as a Supreme Court justice for the United States was to uphold the law and not use my platform as a justice to manipulate the law to mirror my personal opinions.

http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/bulletin/backissues/fall98/article5.html (image)

Blasecki, Janet L. “Justice Lewis F. Powell: Swing Voter Or Staunch Conservative?.” Journal Of Politics 52.2 (1990): 530. Academic Search Complete. Web. 8 Sept. 2014.
Biskupic, Joan, and Fred Barbash. “Retired Justice Lewis Powell Dies at 90.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 26 Aug. 1998. Web. 08 Sept. 2014.

Of all the freedoms granted under the first amendment the one I could live without would be the freedom to petition. Petitioning can be an effective way to voice your opinion and evoke change but not nearly as important as the right to free speech, press, assembly, and religion. Without freedom of petition we as citizens of the United States could still experience a rather unique and gratifying way of life not seen in other parts of the world. But without one of the other four freedoms our rights under our democratic government would be severely undermined.

Welcome to u.osu.edu. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!