Director of ‘Crude’ Can’t Claim Journalist’s Privilege, Court Says – NYTimes.com

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by

Trent
in

Documentary Filmmaker Doesn’t Qualify for a Journalist’s Privilege, a Court Says

Joe Berlinger cannot refuse to turn over footage from his film about an oil field in Ecuador because his work was not based on independent reporting, an appellate court in Manhattan ruled.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/us/15crude.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

A federal appeals court has ruled that Joe Berlinger, a filmmaker who was ordered to hand over footage from his 2009 documentary “Crude” to the Chevron Corporation, cannot invoke a journalist’s privilege in refusing to do so because his work does not constitute an act of independent reporting.