Defamation and the Internet: How the Law Effectively Allows Bloggers to Take Risks Big Media Companies Can't, and How Companies Can Work to Level the Playing Field FindLaw columnist, attorney, and author Julie Hilden comments on how the defamation law landscape is changing as newspapers increasingly find it hard to attract advertising dollars, newsrooms shrink, and major media companies' main presences become their websites. Hilden contends that, as major companies' news sites increasingly compete with smaller sites and even individual bloggers, there will be a gap in defamation exposure: Defamation suits that could yield large verdicts, if the defendant is a media company, will not be worth bringing against shallow-pocketed individuals and sites. As a result, blogs and smaller sites' coverage will predictably be edgier. Hilden suggests a way in which major media companies can level the playing field: use more independent contractors, whose writing will not be directly ascribed to the company for purposes of defamation law.