Today's journalism lessons, or, What the matter with Kansas is
- Libel is libel, irrespective of whether it appears in a newspaper or on the Web.
- Unflattering but factually accurate reporting about someone is not libel, despite what the people on this jury think.
I don't often make predictions, by the way, but I'll make one in this case: The verdict will be overturned in its entirety on appeal, the entire judgment thrown out. The jury admits that the reporting was accurate; all else is sound and fury, signifying nothing even though it was extremely embarrassing (and no doubt terrifying) to the plaintiff. I haven't read the entire case file, but on the basis of this news article it looks as if the judge should have swatted this claim out of the park on summary judgment.
(Also, to gauge the jury's intellectual candlepower, note that although jurors concede that the plaintiff's name was on the jail log AND that the jail log was a public record, they couldn't agree on the invasion-of-privacy issue. In other words, at least one person thought that publication of the guy's name under those circumstances constituted a valid tort claim. Jayhawk, please.)
In the United States we do not, except in cases of national security, punish people for the publication of true but unflattering material. For those of you new to the country, that's one of the many things that lead us to think of ourselves as the good guys.
