Our pals, Amy and Rox ask a question today that just happens to be weighing heaviliy on our fluffy little ole big heads: “[W]hy aren’t these darned bloggers getting sued all the time? Heck, if we printed a fraction of the wild, unchecked, often untrue rumors they do, we’d spend all our time in court!”

What a timely moment to bring this issue up! A vast majority of your average, run-of-the-mill bloggers simply aren’t rooted in journalism, and therefore don’t know where the legal line is when reporting a story. We, ourselves, have reported several articles for mainstream publications about bloggers who’ve gotten themselves in trouble because they have absolutely no clue what they’re doing, beyond whispering, and then point and clicking. Our reporting - along with consultations with dozens of lawyers, both for journalistic and personal reasons - has helped give us the sensibility about where one can and cannot go, legally.  

Most silly bloggers, unlike real publications, don’t have libel/defamation insurance because they can’t afford it, and they usually can’t afford to pay for a lengthy trial, or settlement costs. However, a person like Wonkette’s Alex Pareene can afford to push the envelope a bit because he’s got the deep pockets of Gawker media, a multi-million dollar corporation, to help support him (as it’s doing for Ana Marie Cox in her current involvement in the Robert Steinbuch/Jessica Cutler case).

People are even being sued for what they write in the comments sections of Web sites, which can all be tracked via IP address, masked or not, and whether they’re anonymous or not. That’s why we laugh at the multiple anonymous commenters out there - a habit, by the way, that we don’t believe in - because their digital fingerprints are everywhere, just waiting for someone with enough money to hire a lawyer to help track them down.  

The Reliable Source also reported today that “experts say there have been few suits filed against online gossip purveyors”:

Why? In part because there’s too much gossip to keep up with, said Baltimore lawyer William McDaniel, who once sued Matt Drudge on behalf of Sidney Blumenthal…”It’s hard for people to know what’s being said” out in the vast blogosphere. Another reason, said local media-law expert Bruce Brown: “Many people who run blogs don’t have the deep pockets that a plaintiff’s lawyer would typically look to.”

Some people, however, do know what’s being said and do have the deep pockets to pursue a lawsuit, whether successful or not. Some might even do such a thing merely for the publicity of it all, who knows? It would be like paying for advertising, in the end.

Anyway, hugs and kisses to you all, as usual (and many thanks to Rox and Amy for bringing this issue up).