Prisoner of the “Merry-Go-Round”

President Richard Nixon barred his staff from talking to Drew Pearson, while the columnist’s own staff thought he was being too easy on Nixon. Aging and in ill health, Pearson had mellowed but could not afford to stop working—although he began sharing a byline with Jack Anderson. Rather than retire, Pearson bought his newspaper syndicate and sought to buy a radio station. While he still earned a great deal, he needed to pay staff salaries and maintain his revenue-losing farms in Maryland. What saved him from financial disaster were lucrative book contracts and the Supreme Court’s ruling in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan that made it harder for public officials to win libel suits. Yet when he died in 1969, his financial estate was in disarray.

Trying an Accused Serial Sexual Harasser for Libel in a US Civil Court

The goal of this article is to provide a class of MeToo# victims of a high-profile serial sexual harasser with a non-invasive method for civil action, when the accused publicly dismisses the victims’ claims as lies. When these libelous claims do occur, the victims can be assembled into a class-action libel/defamation case, which in most US states must be mounted within two years of the claim. Because under current civil methods, the plaintiffs would be subject to intense cross-examination in a civil jury trial, class-action lawsuits with small numbers of plaintiffs (e.g. 5–8) have proven impossible to conduct. This article provides a blueprint to create a collaboration amongst the victims, credibility-assessment (lie-detector) experts, statisticians, and MeToo# attorneys to litigate libel suits, which will likely produce out-of-court settlements. Once the first case is successfully completed, precedent will be set to bring other perpetrators to justice, and act as a deterrent to future exploitation. The evidentiary basis would be based on testing the null hypothesis that all plaintiffs are lying, to compare the inferred lying rates of the plaintiffs to similar population controls, who would be known liars, to a “Yes” answer to “Did X sexually harass you?”

Bloomberg story to fuel suspicion of China's hardware

Subject Bloomberg report on Chinese supply chain attack. Significance Amazon and Supermicro on October 24 joined Apple in calling on Bloomberg Businessweek to retract its October 4 story about an alleged Chinese supply chain attack on 30 US companies, including Apple and Amazon. Based on evidence provided by 17 anonymous sources from the affected companies and the US government, the story alleged that Chinese agents planted malicious chips in server motherboards manufactured by Supermicro, a major hardware supplier in the United States and globally. Thus far, no one has been able to corroborate Bloomberg's claim, and Bloomberg has provided no further verification itself. Impacts Bloomberg will face pressure to review its reporting standards if it fails to deliver credible evidence for the story. The controversy could end in costly libel suits against Bloomberg if it fails to retract or verify its report. There are no global norms on cyber or supply chain attacks; no agreement is forthcoming.

Deepening shadows: The eclipse of press rights in Kyrgyzstan

In March 2005, a relatively nonviolent uprising ousted an authoritarian president in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan. In the aftermath of the so-called Tulip Revolution, press rights advocates and journalists welcomed the promise of greatly enhanced freedoms. However, the new regime proved to be as authoritarian and corrupt as its predecessor and little liberalization of the press system was evident five years later. Physical assaults continued, including murders, as did harassment, libel suits, impediments to access to information, license denials and self-censorship. There was only slow movement toward privatizing of state-owned media. Independent and oppositional media also remained in financial peril due to the country’s weak economy and high poverty level. Thus, 20 years after independence and a half-decade after the Tulip Revolution, the Soviet propaganda model for a press system was dead in name, but many major attributes survived, with significant implications for the continuum of authoritarianism in other postcommunist nations. The degree to which the April 2010 coup and subsequent constitutional change to a parliamentary democracy will spur an expansion of press rights and sustain market-based independent media outlets remains speculative amid grave concerns about continuing anti-press events.

The “Wire Service” Libel Defense

Local news media can safely republish defamatory stories furnished by reputable wire services on the basis of the “wire service” libel defense. The powerful, but often neglected, libel defense has been applied to at least twenty reported cases in thirteen jurisdictions. Its success rate has been almost 100 percent. From the First Amendment perspective, the wire service defense, which has its genesis in Layne v. Tribune Co. (1933), adds considerably to free debate as an additional weapon for the press to tackle meritless libel suits.

Public Attitudes toward Libel: Do Newspaper Readers and Editors See Eye-to-Eye?

Kentucky survey shows the public believes libel suits are not justified if papers have published retractions. Majority also believe threat of libel suits cause papers not to publish some stories.

Liability for Publishing Syndicated and Free-Lance Material

Since before Drew Pearson, whose syndicated column elicited more titan 100 libel suits, editors have feared libel suits prompted by copy produced by outside writers. The courts have given prudent editors some breathing space, however, shielding publications in most instances from potential recklessness of free-lancers.

Newspaper Liability for Libel of a Former Employee

Newspapers have experienced an increase in the number of libel suits brought by former employees. Cases have involved explanations to readers about why staff members were discharged, communications to staffers regarding the dismissals of former colleagues and employment references. This article discusses libel law as it applies to these problems and suggests how newspapers may avoid liability.