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

[Derechos]

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.

Mr. Berlinger’s film chronicles a lawsuit brought by a group of Ecuadoreans who say that the Lago Agrio oil field — initially run by Texaco, which Chevron now owns — polluted their water supply, and he has been locked in a legal battle against Chevron for months.

In May, the Federal District Court in Manhattan ruled that Mr. Berlinger would have to give his raw footage, about 600 hours of it, to Chevron. The company said the material would show an improper collaboration between the plaintiffs’ lawyers in the Ecuadorean lawsuit and an expert appointed by the Ecuadorean court as a neutral party.

On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan, ruled in July that Mr. Berlinger would have to turn over only a portion of the footage, now totaling more than 500 hours. In a separate ruling in September, the district court ordered Mr. Berlinger to submit to depositions.

In a decision issued on Thursday concerning Mr. Berlinger’s contention that he was protected as a journalist from being compelled to share his materials, the Second Circuit judges said they did not find the argument, which his lawyers presented to the court in July, to be persuasive.

“Given all the circumstances of the making of the film,” the judges wrote, “as reasonably found by the district court, particularly the fact that Berlinger’s making of the film was solicited by the plaintiffs in the Lago Agrio litigation for the purpose of telling their story, and that changes to the film were made at their instance, Berlinger failed to carry his burden of showing that he collected information for the purpose of independent reporting and commentary.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/us/15crude.html?ref=us

[flamingdem]

1. Bad news for journalists and doc filmmakers nt

[social_critic]

2. Bad news for the plaintiffs

I visited the area in Ecuador where the pollution has taken place, and I think the plaintiff's case is extremely weak. If the film clips indeed show collusion, Chevron is going to put their heads on a legal spike. Quality journalists don't have anything to fear, the guys who made Crude can not be considered real journalists - as per the court decision.