Following a series of well-reported stories by Technical.ly on a startup in turmoil (including this most recent one), the founder threatened legal action. I’ve been here before.
In fact, I had drafted here a blog post from 2013 (!) that I’m refreshing for these purposes. Once or twice a year, we at Technical.ly get some kind of threat of legal action. Sometimes this amounts to a cease and desist letter, once it was formal-sounding demands for reporter notes and more often it is bluster.
Most usually though, our legal counsel advises us to stay quiet. No use inflaming the situation. But this time, one of the startup founder’s allies posted on social media a criticism of my reporter. That gave me cause to post this video response on social here (and embedded below for ease).
Continue reading What I’ve learned from being threatened with legal action as a journalist and news publisher