Team Teaching Guide
Media Law (JOUR 3633)
1. What do your cases have in common with the problem for your team?
2. Are there rulings by the judges in all or some of your cases that are based on the same precedent (previous cases)?
3. Are there one or two main questions presented in the cases and in your problem?
4. Are there legal "terms of art" that are common in your cases? These are phrases that seem to have a special meaning in the way they are used in your cases and in the literature that you read. (Examples: public forum, prior restraint, reasonable person, puffery, actual malice, compelled speech, safe harbor.)
5. Are there statutory laws that apply to your cases?
6. As a team, try to come up with one sentence that states the issue or issues in your problem. (Example: "The issue is whether it is a violation of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act for two aldermen to call each other and discuss city business by phone.")
7. Be sure everyone in the group can explain what the legal issues are in your problem.
8. Be sure everyone has a copy of the research citations of others in the group and understands what each piece of research adds to the discussion. Everyone will need these notes to write in class for Research Report No. 2.
9. Once you understand, as a team, what the issue is, talk about what other kinds of research is needed.
Example: if your MLR was on the Arkansas FOI Act, you might write:
"We need a copy of the actual Arkansas FOI Act, more cases that interpret the FOI's definition of public meetings. and the attorney general's opinions referred to in the cases."