Eddie Johnson v. The Trib and Skip Bayless

[rgd]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/southsouthwest/chi-0610130260oct13,1,4924443.story

From the Trib's story on the lawsuit ...
"The day after the Tribune story appeared, Dan McGrath, the paper's associate managing editor/sports, apologized for the 'inadvertent but hurtful error' that he said occurred in the rush to meet deadlines."
So I'm assuming it is better to call someone a child molester and meet deadline, than make sure it is accurate, and bust a deadline?
Hmm, even the lawyer makes the same argument, basically saying we apologized the next day, what more does the guy, who we accused of being a child molester, want?
Skipper's involved since he was on the radio that day talking about shameful it was to see a fine guy like Eddie Johnson getting busted for diddling kids. But Skipper was just reading the Trib that day, not actually doing any reporting. If he had, he would have seen the AP story that correctly identified the right Eddie Johnson.
It seems to me that using the excuse of "we were just trying to make deadline" is pretty weak and it won't stand in court. Best guess, sealed out of court settlement in the low seven figures, split between the Trib and ClearChannel, the company that owns the station Skipper was on.
Paging DyePack ... Did the Trib's story run on the cover and how did the Sun-Times play it?

So they forked up, big time, but it's not like there was any intent of malice involved, so the "rush to meet deadlines" excuse is totally valid. Eddie Johnson has no case.

And I don't think the Trib story was on the cover. I believe it was a brief along the top of the back page.

 

[Lugnuts]

It's shameful that a fine guy like Eddie Johnson would make such a blatant play for money by filing a nuisance lawsuit.

Yes, Eddie Johnson is a public figure -- doesn't he have an on-air gig right now?

And no, there was clearly no malice.

Everyone should want Trib to fight this. Hopefully it will be dismissed at summary judgement.

Settling encourages nuisance lawsuits over our mistakes -- mistakes everybody makes. That would be really, really bad for us.

 

[tenacious_g]

Doesn't EJ have to show malice because he's a public figure? That would be awfully tough for him to prove given the apology.

I apologize if this is just plain ignorance on my part, but in my understanding of malice, it sounds like everyone here is under the assumption that malice is merely intent. But the courts have ruled malice can also be proven when there is a reckless disregard for the truth.

http://medialibel.org/libel/definition.html

Taken from the above link: "Actual Malice is what plaintiffs in the public eye have to prove in order to win a libel case. Actual malice is the act of publishing or broadcasting statements with prior knowledge of the inaccuracy of the statement or a reckless disregard for the truth."

**or a reckless disregard for the truth.**

A Chicago paper assuming it was their old Eddie Johnson without making any attempt to verify that seems to be pretty reckless to me. It was not as if the truth was not easily attainable... AP obviously did their job. Were there attempts by the paper to call the EJ they were accusing or verify before publication? I know the deadline rush apology makes me think no, which is what EJ and his attorney might argue made it reckless. Every other paper had deadlines and didn't accuse the wrong guy of child molestation. Unless I'm missing something (admittedly, I may be missing something here), this seems like a little bit of a lack of journalistic responsibility. I'm not by any means saying there is a pattern here on the paper's part, but in this isolated case it seems they are wrong.

Again, I apologize if I'm flat wrong here. Some of you guys seem so sure of this, I hesitated to pose this thought, but please explain how this wouldn't fall under a reckless disregard for the truth.

 

[Ace]

ten_g,

I think that you are correct to an extent. If a report came across that John Doe was a child molester and the Trib assumed it was the first John Doe in the phone book and wrote a story based on that, it would be a malicious disregard for the truth.

But an assumption that the former NBA player Eddie Johnson was former Bull Eddie Johnson isn't so far-fetched.

 

[jaredk]

Sure, there has to be malice proven. But McGrath's apology, however quickly delivered and however heartfelt, doesn't prove there was none. In fact, being the devil's advocate here (or Eddie Johnson's lawyer), if "everybody" knew it just couldn't be Chicago's Eddie Johnson in that trouble, it's not unreasonable to wonder if the "mistake" was done intentionally. As Eddie's lawyer, it's my duty to put the guy who wrote the item under oath for a deposition.

 

[tenacious_g]

Can someone tell me, if they know, where the Trib caught wind of the story? Did they write their own or us the AP story and just use the wrong photo? Did they have the police report with DOB and SSN and address, etc? If it was their story, what were they basing it on and who did they attribute it to?

I'm not sure how they did it and never saw their story.

 

[Ace]

Can someone tell me, if they know, where the Trib caught wind of the story? Did they write their own or us the AP story and just use the wrong photo? Did they have the police report with DOB and SSN and address, etc? If it was their story, what were they basing it on and who did they attribute it to?

I'm not sure how they did it and never saw their story.

My guess is they saw the AP story, made an assumption and localized it. Doubt they saw any police reports or anything.

 

[Lugnuts]

Malice has to be proved, but the threshold is much higher for a public figure, which Johnson clearly is.

And if I were Trib's lawyer, at a deposition I'd ask Eddie Johnson about his comments the day after it happened: "Everybody makes mistakes."

This is the 5th time in the last month I've had to beg people on a journalism site to stick up for the First Amendment.

 

[swenk]

Malice has to be proved, but the threshold is much higher for a public figure, which Johnson clearly is.

And if I were Trib's lawyer, at a deposition I'd ask Eddie Johnson about his comments the day after it happened: "Everybody makes mistakes."

This is the 5th time in the last month I've had to beg people on a journalism site to stick up for the First Amendment.

I'm not seeing the First Amendment issue here--are you saying that punishing the Tribune for a mistake would somehow restrict their freedom to publish?

 

[Ace]

Malice has to be proved, but the threshold is much higher for a public figure, which Johnson clearly is.

And if I were Trib's lawyer, at a deposition I'd ask Eddie Johnson about his comments the day after it happened: "Everybody makes mistakes."

This is the 5th time in the last month I've had to beg people on a journalism site to stick up for the First Amendment.

I'm not seeing the First Amendment issue here--are you saying that punishing the Tribune for a mistake would somehow restrict their freedom to publish?

Don't you think that your sphincter would be a little tighter if you got sued for every mistake?

Not a far leap from that to getting sued because you had little Suzie's name wrong in the softball story and now it will cost her a $100,000 college scholarship.

 

[Lugnuts]

are you saying that punishing the Tribune for a mistake would somehow restrict their freedom to publish?

Yes. Because of the First Amendment, we have the right to say all kinds of nasty and sometimes false shirt-- and not get punished for it.

You're an agent, right? OK, no offense, I don't necessarily expect you to get it. But I do expect the people who call themselves journalists to get it.

The problem is, there's a lot of hatred for corporations (ESPN, Trib) and people (Luppy, Albom)... so much so that folks are letting that personal hatred eclipse their feelings about even the most basic tenets of journalism. It's called shooting yourself in the foot, and soon it could erode what journalism means and has meant to this country.

I can only hope the views on this website don't really match those of practicing journalists, which is a distinct possibility.

 

[JayFarrar]

This is the 5th time in the last month I've had to beg people on a journalism site to stick up for the First Amendment.

You make it sound like the First Amendment is some sort of thin inky line, that everytime an outlet is challenged in court on a mistake or is ordered to comply with federal law, that everyone in the business must band together in their defense.
I don't think that. I think each case should be looked at individually. So, for example, I think that blogger in San Fran should give the cops his tapes, but I digress.
I don't know all the details in this particular case. I'm curious to find how a correct AP story was turned into a factual incorrect story in the Trib. I'm curious about the Sun-Times and the other papers in Chicago. It seems that if they got it right, how did the Trib get it wrong?
The Trib has done this before, recently even, with some photos of people they said were in the mafia, and it turns out they had the wrong people, the right names, just the wrong people in the pictures.
So it seems like a lawyer could establish a pattern, one that shows the Trib has a reckless disregard for the truth.
And, as I recall, the Trib settled out of court in the picture case(s) as well.