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You’re interviewing the former mayor of your city about his career as a public servant. It’s a lively session.The mayor has a treasure trove of stories about past political battles and intrigues. You ask for his opinion of the current mayor who defeated him in the last election. He doesn’t hold back.“That morally delinquent deadbeat? He’s just a sneaky, groveling office-seeker, a con man who buys votes, sells influence, and swindles the taxpayers . He serves the Mafia, not the people.” This is terrific stuff, but you’ll be wise not to use it in your public program or radio series on the city’s history. The exmayor may have legitimate concerns about the conduct of the last election—especially those unopened ballot boxes discovered six weeks later at the city dump—but he is making a libelous statement. Indeed, in three sentences, I’ve used nine red-flag words listed by libel expert Bruce Sanford.The list of words and expressions in Sanford’s Libel and Privacy is gleaned from actual cases.1 None of these words used alone will trigger a libel suit; that depends on the context and the person named. But it pays to be careful. What’s the problem?You didn’t use the red-flag words; the ex-mayor did. Surely, he’s responsible for what he says. In fact,  Chapter Four Legal Issues By David H. Mould F you are both responsible, and so is your organization.The exmayor used the words, but you published them and brought the libelous statement to the public. Oral historians are less likely than journalists, photographers, plastic surgeons, and used car dealers to be sued. But there have been court cases involving the content of oral history interviews and legal disputes over the ownership and use of interviews. At universities, institutional review boards (IRBs) have attempted to place restrictions on interviewing. Oral historians need to follow basic guidelines to stay out of trouble and to be aware of developing case law. The purpose of this chapter is not to provide a comprehensive review of state and federal statutes and cases or to summarize all legal issues that an oral historian could face. For the past twenty-five years, these tasks have been diligently and masterfully performed by historian and judge John Neuenschwander in Oral History and the Law.2 Nor is the purpose of this chapter to dispense legal advice.That’s what lawyers do. So if you have a specific problem or question, consult an attorney. However, this chapter will provide an overview of legal issues and guidelines to help you stay out of trouble.We’ll start with that bankrupt , blacklisted, corrupt, cowardly, hypocritical (five more words from Sanford’s list) thing called defamation.  The good news is that I can’t be sued for publishing that last sentence. In the United States, only an individual person or an organization can sue for libel. Words, ideologies, countries, professions, domestic pets, and inanimate objects can’t. As a native Briton,I’m sometimes offended byAmerican stereotypes of what it means to be British—some combination of binge tea drinking, gardening, hunting foxes, doting on the royal family, and living in a stone cottage in a village called Middle-Wallupunder -the-Wolds. But I can’t sue a travel magazine for an article that idealizes rural Britain because there’s no way to prove Legal Issues F  that the bucolic portrayal has injured my personal reputation. Similarly,as a university professor,I don’t think I live in an ivory tower,but I can’t sue critics who believe academe is out of touch with the world. However, a corporation, religious group, labor union, or nonprofit organization can sue for defamation if it can prove that damage was done to its collective reputation and not to its individual staff or representatives. In business, where the value of a brand and customer goodwill may be a company’s greatest assets, this provides protection against unfounded claims by competitors or disgruntled customers. In the nonprofit sector , where trust and transparency are key currencies, a faithbased or charitable organization may sue if it is accused of misuse of funds on the grounds that such accusations reduce public trust and contributions. The issue of group and individual identification becomes difficult in smaller communities.There’s no problem with the statement “All politicians are crooks,” or even “All politicians in the state are crooks.” But if...

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