At some point in a mass-media student’s education, someone will usually point out that those of us in journalism are in a business that cannot make everyone happy.
That’s actually true of just about any occupation, but for the Voices page, that means, inevitably, a letter-writer will decide that, because a letter hasn’t been printed, it must be something personal or part of an agenda. Most times, unprinted letters contain falsehoods or won’t pass the breakfast test. Often, though, rejected letters involve legal matters, which can be a rather sticky area for an opinion page.
Things such as disputes with neighbors, a specific business or among members of a private entity rarely make it onto the Voices page. Whether lawyers have become involved yet in the dispute or not, we tend to erron the side of caution. Not having all the facts involved, printing such a letter would become a “he said, she said” situation that could easily escalate into personal attacks.
There are far better avenues for such disputes than a letters page … ones that generally won’t result in a summons.
The over-arching legal concern, though, is libel. The Associated Press defines libel as defamation (false statement of fact) in print that damages the reputation of an individual or entity. The test is if it’s provably true; if the statement cannot be proved to be true, it can be considered libel.
One could note, for example, that the late U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd was a member of the KKK in the 1940s, as that has been well-documented. Saying that about someone with no evidence of such activity would open up the door for a libel suit, which would affect not only whoever published it, but the person who wrote it.
Sure, you’ll see all sorts of things on the Internet that wouldn’t pass the libel test: Accusations of murder or other crimes for which there is no evidence; debunked rumors about a public figure’s sex life, etc., are all over the place. Sometimes, everything is stated as fact with no attention paid to whether charges have even been filed or that strong evidence disproves the claims.
Other times, it’s quite obviously satire, but because satire is hard to pull off well, some readers will believe it; some even believe it when it originates from a site clearly labeled as satirical. Not you, though. We know you didn’t believe the bit about gorilla sales climbing as states passed gorilla-control laws, did you? That story about psychologists being worried for the sanity of those few people who approve of Congress has at least a little merit, though.
To prove libel, private individuals have only to prove that a reasonable person would not have published and/or written such statements. Public figures, on the other hand, must prove actual malice in the act. That doesn’t mean that we’ll publish just anything about a public figure such as President Barack Obama or House Speaker John Boehner; statements of fact still must actually be fact.
The recent ruling by a federal judge in the case of Sarah Jones, an ex-cheerleader for the Cincinnati Bengals, has cast renewed attention on defamation on the Internet. A gossip site claimed Jones had slept with the entire team and likely had two sexually transmitted diseases. The judge found that the claims were substantially false and that the site’s operator had acted with malice or reckless disregard; he awarded Jones $338,000 in damages. The decision, however, has drawn cries of protest from Internet powerhouses such as Twitter and Facebook.
The federal Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996, was intended to promote free speech on the Web by providing companies immunity for content posted by users.However, the law was also meant to encourage websites to self-police for offensive material, and in that goal, it seems to have failed. The honor system can work, but only when those involved actually have honor;
unfortunately, many of the sites out there seem to be rather short on that quality. Heck, a lot are just plain short of quality.
If I’m going to read something full of grammatical and spelling errors, it’s going to be on ICanHasCheezburger.com or CakeWrecks.blogspot.com. At least I can get a good laugh out of them.
Longtime reader Karl Hansen pointed out that something was missing in my column last Thursday, and for that I’m grateful. Readers like him help keep us honest.
As readers of my blog might know, I’ve updated the entry on the topic of Congress and women’s rights. The genie was already out of the bottle on the print version, however, darn it all. What’s that saying? “The best-laid plans of mice and men …” In my case, those mice apparently carried away the brain cells that would have added an important caveat.
Hansen is indeed correct that having the moms of congressmen teach them how to treat women would accomplish little, and I had intended to make that point. Here’s what I meant to have said:
“But here’s an idea: Have those classes taught by average moms rather than political strategists. And not their moms, since either they apparently didn’t teach their sons not to treat women so shabbily, or their sons didn’t listen.”
One of the advantages of a blog is that I can go back and update entries after the fact; the printed page offers much more finite opportunities. At least till I can get a time machine up and running.
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Assistant Editor Brenda Looper is editor of the Voices page. Read her blog at blooper0223.wordpress.com.
Editorial, Pages 17 on 12/18/2013