Documentary Filmmaker Doesn’t Qualify for a Journalist’s Privilege, a Court Says
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.
Read more at the New York Times
