Coaches wife confronts columnist in press box

Frank, she approached him in the press box. It is a public place. There are others in there besides reporters, namely boosters, university officials, etc. Canzano NEEDED to get his side on the record.

 

In light of the split opinion here, and just to widen the discussion, how should a reporter handle this?

 

C'mon. You can't have the only public report on something be written by someone involved in it, someone claiming victimhood, someone writing opinion that attacks someone else and accuses her of drunkenness. You either run a straight he said/she said or you run nothing.

If I'm Colleen Bellotti's lawyer, I'm thinking Canzano accuses her of "a strong scent of alcohol on her breath." Is Canzano qualified to judge the unlikely difference between the smell of one drink and the smell of six? Is there corroboration that there was cause to imply my client had too much to drink? Did The Oregonian ask my client for comment? The Oregonian had other reporters in the press box -- why didn't an uninvolved reporter write the story? Isn't it common practice for news organizations to report such incidents only when a police report was filed? Did any other Oregon newspaper believe it was newsworthy enough to report it? Does Canzano ask even one witness to corroborate his accusations in his blog account?

 

Yes. If we're going to talk about actionable, the alcohol reference is right up there.

 

How does "strong scent of alcohol" imply quantity?

I'm not sure that 30 drinks make your breath stink significantly more than one.

 

Exactly my point. "Strong scent" is highly subjective and implies one has had a significant amount to drink when that may not be the case. A newspaper writer, presumably with no special training that a cop might have (and even a cop tests his judgment with field-sobriety and Breathalyzer tests), making a judgment he is unqualified to make. Libel.

 

Yeah but that's not what you said originally.

 

Frank,
The subjectivity is the very thing that would prevent such a statement from being libel.

 

If memory serves, I believe Fulmer's wife confronted the late great Gary Lundy in the Neyland press box during the Casey Clausen years.

Don't think it was anything like this, though.

 

If he could smell the alcohol on her breath, then I see no problem with mentioning it. Now if he said she accosted him in a drunken rage without actually knowing her blood-alcohol level, then you might have a point.

Remember what must be proved in a libel case: Reporting information you know to be incorrect with the intent of damaging someone. I don't see that here.

There may have been malicious intent, but it's going to be awfully difficult to prove he did not smell alcohol on her. All a good defense attorney has to do is ask Mrs. Bellotti if she had so much as one sip of alcohol before confronting Canzano (and keep reminding her that she is under oath).

My personal view is that if someone confronts me (with or without alcohol being involved), uses abusive language and grabs me, they'd better hope I don't decide I need to protect myself by whatever means I feel necessary. If such an occurrence happened to me while in a pressbox at a game, I wouldn't hesitate to ensure my wellbeing. Of course, I'm a borderline psycho redneck from the southwest, where such behavior is almost considered a birthright.

 

I can't believe some on here are saying that Canzano was/is smug and therefore got what he deserved. That's ludicrous.

This woman, allegedly intoxicated, confronts the reporter while he's working and she has her brood in tow and both she and the nanny let loose with a grape shot of profanity and yet it's the reporter's fault. No.

Unless, the reporter insinuated that thes on was arrested for fucking sheep, that response is completely uncalled for.

We have here a mother embarassed that her son has been arrested for not one, but two DUIs and even further embarassed because it was made public knowledge. And instead of beating Junior until he can no longer stand or wants to take a drink anymore, she blames somebody else.

That is so typical of this country. Fuck, this country worries me.