New Yorker Under Siege – Sued for $10 million

The story has everything: murder, tribal warfare, a famous writer, and a lawsuit involving him and one of the world’s most prestigious magazines. So why are so few media watchers paying attention to the suit recently brought against Pulitzer winner Jared Diamond and the New Yorker? At the very least, it raises questions about how this particular article was cleared by the magazine’s venerable fact-checking department.

First, some background. The $10-million defamation suit was filed in April on behalf of two men in New Guinea, Henep Isum Mandingo and Hup Daniel Wemp. They were the focus of an April 2008 New Yorker article entitled “Annals of Anthropology: Vengeance Is Ours: What can tribal societies tell us about our need to get even?” It was written by UCLA geography professor Jared Diamond, who won the Pulitzer for his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel. The story was removed from the free section of the magazine’s Web site months before the suit was filed, but here’s a relevant passage:

In 1992, when Daniel Wemp was about twenty-two years old, his beloved paternal uncle Soll was killed in a battle against the neighboring Ombal clan… And Soll had been very good to Daniel, who recalled him as a tall and handsome man, destined to become a leader. Soll’s death demanded vengeance… As it turned out, it took three years, twenty-nine more killings, and the sacrifice of three hundred pigs before Daniel succeeded in discharging this responsibility.

Aside from its claims of mass murder, the story also reported that Mandingo, the main target of Wemp’s vengeance, was confined to a wheelchair as a result of an attack. The story was based on Diamond’s detailed notes of a conversation between him and Wemp. The two met years ago in New Guinea when Wemp worked as Diamond’s driver during a bird research trip.

When the lawsuit was filed late last month, the Associated Press and New York Post picked up the story, but since then it has generated little interest among media reporters. However, one press watchdog dedicated time and resources to untangle the allegations.

The Art Science Research Laboratory, which is run by Rhonda Roland Shearer, operates StinkyJournalism.org. It published a lengthy and detailed examination of the New Yorker story around the same time the lawsuit was filed. (Disclosure: Shearer’s site interviewed me when my book, Regret The Error, came out in 2007 and she hosted a reception for me at her offices. We have kept in touch since then but have never worked together.)

But let’s set aside the lawsuit for a moment and rewind to when the magazine was checking the story. It had what was basically a single-source story, and it wasn’t able to check the article with the source, Daniel Wemp. The story itself also contained some very serious criminal allegations against the source in question. The dilemma is obvious: should you publish without getting some level of confirmation from the source or another party with specific knowledge of the events in question?http://www.cjr.org/regret_the_error/new_yorker_under_siege.php?page=all

Truth No Longer Defense in Some Libel Cases

Truth is no longer a defense in some private-figure libel cases in Massachusetts where the “ill will” of the speaker is established — at least according to a federal appellate opinion issued last week. The court was interpreting Massachusetts state law, not federal law.

The decision in Noonan v. Staples took a unique approach to libel law by ruling that true statements can be libelous if published maliciously. The court also interpreted the term “actual malice” to mean an intentional ill will, finding that a state statute that predated U.S. Supreme Court precedent had a different meaning than the “actual malice” standard of New York Times v. Sullivan.

The Feb. 13 ruling issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston (1st Circuit) counters years of precedent holding that truth is an absolute defense to libel and that “actual malice” means reckless disregard for the truth.

“It is the most dangerous libel decision in decades. The decision puts a crack in the bedrock that threatens to undermine free speech,” Robert Ambrogi, executive director of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association, wrote on his blog.

The case involved a lawsuit brought by a former Staples employee against his employer. Alan Noonan sued Staples for libel after the company’s executive vice president sent an e-mail to 1,500 employees alerting them that Noonan had been fired for violating the company’s travel and expense policy.

Noonan acknowledged that everything written in the e-mail was true, but still claimed he had been libeled because it was sent with malicious intent.

In finding that a reasonable jury might find that the Staples e-mail was sent maliciously, the court pointed to a century-old Massachusetts statute that allows true statements to be considered libelous “if the plaintiff can show that the defendant acted with ‘actual malice’ in publishing the statement.” According to Ambrogi’s blog, the Massachusetts statute was held unconstitutional by a 1998 state court decision.

The court held that the statute’s use of the term ”actual malice” did not have the same meaning as the U.S. Supreme Court’s definition of the term in the landmark First Amendment case New York Times v. Sullivan. Instead of interpreting actual malice to mean that the plaintiff acted with reckless disregard for the truth, as New York Times held, the Court of Appeals ruled that it means ill will or malevolent intent, a much lower standard for the plaintiff to prove.http://www.rcfp.org/newsitems/index.php?i=9958

Can Reporters Sue Sources For Defamation?

The New York Times – A classical music critic who was removed from his post at The Cleveland Plain Dealer after a history of negative reviews of the Cleveland Orchestra’s music director struck back on Thursday with a lawsuit.

The critic, Donald Rosenberg, charged that orchestra officials had waged a “campaign of vilification” against him and that his bosses at the newspaper had caved in to demands that he be ousted.

“It’s key that people realize that journalists have to be given the freedom to operate without pressure from outside sources,” Mr. Rosenberg said in a telephone interview. Mr. Rosenberg stressed that his complaint was directed at the orchestra’s management and not its musicians.

Mr. Rosenberg remains at the paper as a music reporter and dance critic and writes some music reviews, but not of the Cleveland Orchestra. The paper in September assigned a former intern who had worked with Mr. Rosenberg to do that job.

Mr. Rosenberg’s suit, filed in the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga County, names the newspaper and the orchestra’s parent, the Musical Arts Association, as defendants. Also named are Susan Goldberg, the newspaper’s editor; Gary Hanson, the orchestra’s executive director; Richard Bogomolny, its chairman and president; and James Ireland III, a board member and former president.

Mr. Rosenberg, 56, charged the defendants with defamation. He accused orchestra management of tortious interference with his job, and the paper and Ms. Goldberg of age discrimination and violating Ohio’s free speech principle. The suit seeks damages of at least $50,000. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/business/media/12plain.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Fake Story Causes Market Panic

Editor’s note: Is there a potential libel or defamation action if a company accidentally republishes an old story setting off a market panic? This is one issue being explored as a result of a slipup at Google and the Tribune Co.

The New York Times – SAN FRANCISCO — The swift, sharp and short-lived collapse of United Airlines shares last Monday was followed by a week of finger-pointing.

Investors wiped out $1 billion of the market value of UAL, United’s parent, within minutes of an erroneous news flash on Bloomberg screens about a United bankruptcy. Google and the Tribune Company, the owner of The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, whose Web site was the source of the article that led to the headline, soon blamed each other for causing the fiasco.

The stock plunge was instigated by a series of cascading human and machine errors, and it raised new questions about the reliability of automated news services like Google News and the struggles of some traditional media companies to adapt to the Internet age.

New-media analysts say there is plenty of blame to go around. They say that the problem had its roots in the still-clumsy dance between the Web sites of traditional news outlets and the search engines whose attention they covet. It was then amplified by a researcher at a financial information service who had failed to verify information retrieved from the buyer-beware world of the Web.

Legal experts, meanwhile, said that while UAL investors might want to recover their losses in court, Tribune is unlikely to be vulnerable to libel charges, and the Communications Decency Act of 1996 generally protects companies like Google that simply transmit electronic information first published by others.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/technology/15google.html?ex=1379217600&en=96366ff6da465b7e&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Fake story causes market panic.

Editor’s note: Is there a libel or defamation if a company accidentally republishes an old story setting off a market panic. This is one issue being explored as a result of a slipup at Google and the Tribune Co.

The New York Times – SAN FRANCISCO — The swift, sharp and short-lived collapse of United Airlines shares last Monday was followed by a week of finger-pointing.

Investors wiped out $1 billion of the market value of UAL, United’s parent, within minutes of an erroneous news flash on Bloomberg screens about a United bankruptcy. Google and the Tribune Company, the owner of The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, whose Web site was the source of the article that led to the headline, soon blamed each other for causing the fiasco.

The stock plunge was instigated by a series of cascading human and machine errors, and it raised new questions about the reliability of automated news services like Google News and the struggles of some traditional media companies to adapt to the Internet age.

New-media analysts say there is plenty of blame to go around. They say that the problem had its roots in the still-clumsy dance between the Web sites of traditional news outlets and the search engines whose attention they covet. It was then amplified by a researcher at a financial information service who had failed to verify information retrieved from the buyer-beware world of the Web.

Legal experts, meanwhile, said that while UAL investors might want to recover their losses in court, Tribune is unlikely to be vulnerable to libel charges, and the Communications Decency Act of 1996 generally protects companies like Google that simply transmit electronic information first published by others.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/technology/15google.html?ex=1379217600&en=96366ff6da465b7e&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

No Malice Shown in Wisconsin Defamation Case

Editor’s note: Post courtesy of Julie Truck

A former prosecutor and unsuccessful candidate for attorney general cannot continue his libel and slander lawsuit against a newspaper and the administrator of a nonprofit agency. On May 17, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed a trial court’s dismissal of the suit against the Shawano Leader for an article falsely stating he had been convicted of accepting bribes.

The court concluded that no reasonable jury could find that the defendants acted with “actual malice” when they made the defamatory comments about former Outagamie County District Attorney Vincent R. Biskupic.

The court said: We conclude Biskupic is a public figure. In order to prevail, he must prove that the defamation was made with actual malice. On this record, there is not sufficient evidence of actual malice to create a genuine factual dispute on that issue. We therefore affirm the summary judgment. We also reject Biskupic’s argument that the circuit court should have granted him judgment as a sanction for the Leader reporter destroying his notes.

“There is simply no evidence in the record suggesting [the reporter] destroyed his notes in an effort to influence the outcome of possible future litigation or engaged in any other egregious conduct,” the court said.

SEE:http://www.wislawjournal.com/article.cfm/2008/06/23/No-actual-malice-shown-in-defamation-case
http://www.wicourts.gov/ca/opinion/DisplayDocument.html?content=html&seqNo=33045

Can a public reports about a public official be defamatoryl?

It’s a 10-year old case … but it is still going – could a city be guilty of actual malice for publishing allegations in such a report? What liability would the media have for republishing the report about a police chief?

In an apparent victory for Columbus Police Chief James G. Jackson, the Ohio Supreme Court issued a ruling today that says his defamation lawsuit against the city and a former safety director might have a leg to stand on.

The high court’s 4-3 decision reverses a ruling by the Franklin County Court of Appeals and says that including an allegation of immoral activity by Jackson in a report that was made public was enough to raise a question about whether the city acted with “actual malice” and could be found liable for defamation.

More than 10 years ago, then-Safety Director Thomas W. Rice prepared a report for then-Mayor Greg Lashutka on how Jackson handled officers involved in a botched prostitution probe. The report included claims by a convicted criminal that Jackson had hired prostitutes and fathered a child out of wedlock.

Although the allegations were never proved, Jackson claimed that Rice and the city had defamed him. Both state and federal courts have dismissed the case, most recently the appeals court in 2006.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/03/13/jackson.html?sid=101

Treat Web Sites like Newspapers, court says

Newspaper Web sites should be treated like the print version for publication date purposes, according to the judges.Jan. 18, 2008 · The “single publication rule,” which holds that the statute of limitations for libel begins when a defamatory statement is first published, applies to publications on the Internet, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Dallas (5th Cir.) ruled last month. The appeals court upheld the district court’s decision to grant the defendants’ motion. http://www.rcfp.org/news/2008/0118-lib-appeal.html

Ex-HarperCollins Publisher Settles Defamation Suit

Judith Regan, the publisher who was fired from HarperCollins in late 2006, has settled her $100 million defamation lawsuit against News Corporation, Harper’s parent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/26/business/media/26books.html?ex=1359090000&en=9d16ca1d1738e8fc&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

OU sued for defamation in plagiarism dispute

http://www.athensmessenger.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&subsectionID=273&articleID=7732

ELIZABETH GOUSSETIS
Messenger staff writer

A top Ohio University official has said that publjavascript:void(0)
Publish Postic pressure influenced her decision to release a plagiarism report that is a subject of a lawsuit.

Executive Vice President and Provost Kathy Krendl was cross-examined Wednesday at the Ohio Court of Claims trial being held in the defamation lawsuit that former engineering professor Bhavin Mehta filed against the university.

Mehta was one of three professors singled out for blame after the discovery of widespread plagiarism in the OU engineering college. The trial in his lawsuit began Monday.