Practice Areas: Media & First Amendment Litigation

For more than four decades, McGuireWoods lawyers have represented media companies – newspapers, television stations, radio stations, magazines, book publishers and, more recently, publishers of online content and hosts of social media sites – in the full scope of legal issues relating to their businesses. The firm’s media and First Amendment lawyers – several of them former editors and reporters – are recognized in Best Lawyers in America and in Chambers USA for their First Amendment and media law experience. McGuireWoods is a member of the Media Law Resource Center’s Defense Counsel Section. Our media lawyers have authored and contributed to leading publications on defamation and media related issues, including the North Carolina and 4th Circuit chapters of the Media Law Resource Center’s 50-State Annual Survey of Media Libel Law, The North Carolina Media Law Handbook, and The Law of Defamation in Virginia.

The firm represents a range of media clients, including McClatchy Newspapers Inc., The Charlotte Observer, The Fayetteville Observer, Raycom Media Inc., WBTV, Inc., ITV Studios, Inc., Greater Media, Inc. and the Charlotte Business Journal. We have also represented other national publishers and broadcasters on specific litigation and business-related matters. We counsel our media clients and represent them in court on the full range of issues they face, including:

• Pre-publication and pre-broadcast review
• Defamation and privacy claims
• Access to state and federal courts and court records
• Resisting subpoenas and search warrants
• Prior restraints against publication and gag orders on trial participants
• Access to public records under state statutes and the federal Freedom of Information Act
• Right of publicity / misappropriation of likeness
• Print, broadcast, and Internet-related advertising issues
• Trademark and copyright infringement matters
• Internet legal issues, including claims involving the Communications Decency Act, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, among other statutes

We work closely with our regular clients through in-house seminars and pre-publication / pre-broadcast review sessions to help them minimize litigation risks and keep current on legal developments that affect them. We strive to be counselors to our clients at all times, and creative, effective courtroom advocates when necessary. We have helped clients assemble coalitions of media entities in matters involving access to court records and proceedings, as well as to government records under state and federal freedom of information laws.

Recent Representative Matters

• State of North Carolina v. Jonathan Fitzgerald, (N.C. Superior Ct. 2011). Obtained order quashing subpoena to documentary producer for ITV Studios, Inc. which was subpoenaed by a criminal defendant to produce all raw video footage and reporters’ notes in a capital murder case. The court refused to allow the defendant to use a criminal discovery statute to obtain the same information.
• United States v. Demario James Atwater, (M.D.N.C. 2010). Opposed subpoena duces tecum to network-owned television station from capital murder defendant for copies of all aired broadcasts and all articles and comments posted on station website; court quashed subpoena as overbroad and burdensome.
• State of North Carolina v. Demeatrius Montgomery (N.C. Superior Ct. 2010). Trial court, over objections of prosecutor and murder defendant, granted The Charlotte Observer’s motion for contemporaneous access to transcripts of audio and video recordings of 911 tapes and police communications played to jury during murder trial of defendant charged with murder of two Charlotte police officers.
• Obtained court dismissal of defamation and related claims against law firm arising from email communications about plaintiffs. (2010)
• Obtained court dismissal of Internet defamation and related claims against publisher of international scientific journal. (2009)
• Daniel Green v. WBTV, Inc., (N.C. Superior Ct. 2009). Obtained summary judgment in libel/infliction of emotional distress lawsuit brought by man convicted of killing father of NBA star Michael Jordan.
• Defended major motion picture distributor in copyright infringement lawsuit filed by an author who claimed his manuscript was the basis for the movie “He Got Game.”
• Defended newspaper in copyright infringement lawsuit over use of photographs.
• Defended South Carolina-based video distributor in lawsuits in Massachusetts and Indiana alleging copyright infringement and trademark infringement and dilution.
• Represented international financial institution seeking to halt competitor’s trademark infringement in nationally televised bankcard commercials.
• Advised newspapers and other Internet Service Providers on privacy policies, terms of use, and social media issues.