shared legal representation
June 29, 2009In this post on Poynter Online, a citizen of a small-town talks about how the town’s newspaper has very shallow coverage of the local government and also how the newspaper happens to share the same law firm with several local government agencies. It’s also been noted that those with the legal representation seem to avoid any negative coverage.
Lawyers are very important when it comes to keeping newspapers out of legal trouble, like helping them avoid libel or defamation suits. But sharing legal representation with the government that a newspaper is expected to cover and investigate is a huge conflict of interest. Lawyers have to look out for all their clients, so it probably serves them very well to be able to protect their government clients by advising the newspaper not to have any probing coverage of them. But the newspaper has more responsibility to its readers than its lawyers. The newspaper should consider journalistic concerns over overly cautious legal concerns.
