It's hard not to feel a sense of satisfaction that the defamation suits against Fox brought by Dominion Voting Systems are making the likes of Sydney Powell and other Trump enablers squirm. But there is an aspect to this that concerns some of us in the media business.
Historically, slander, defamation and libel suits have been used to suppress critics and damage the news organizations that quote them. Although many of these legal actions are eventually overturned or dismissed, by the time that happens the legal costs can set back a news organization by millions of dollars.
For smaller outfits, like local newspapers, this can spell bankruptcy.
Ultimately, the threat of libel acts to discourage media executives from supporting the type of investigative reporting I've devoted my life to and am constantly celebrating. One of most revealing things you need to know about my role inside media companies is that I often have become close with the in-house lawyers and outside counsels.
This comes to mind because one of today's news headlines is that a federal judge has thrown out a massive libel suit against my former colleagues at the Center for Investigative Reporting. CIR is a non-profit with a modest budget, not a profitable company with deep pockets like Fox News, and the burden imposed by defending such a lawsuit is therefore formidable.
As is often the case with virtually all issues these days, the liberal side of the political world is happy about the Dominion lawsuits against Fox, Powell and others. I get that. But beware that what cheers you today may darken your horizon tomorrow.
***
The access to vaccines is varying so widely now in California that it can make your head spin. Just across the bridge in Marin, you have to be aged 50 and above to get poked, but here in Contra Costa County, anyone 16 and over can get vaccinated.
In addition, according to news reports, there is an excess of vaccine capacity up and down the Central Valley of the state, which has far more anti-vaxxers than we do here on the coast.
Unfortunately the virus doesn't care what your political orientation is; it is a non-partisan killer. And as it continues to mutate, it seems almost certain to outpace our ability to reach herd immunity any time soon.
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As the Derek Chauvin trial proceeds, one senses that this country is sitting on a time bomb awaiting the outcome of this trial. Should Chauvin be acquitted after the evidence we are seeing, last summer's riots will no doubt look like child's play.
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The news:
* In California a federal court issued a 44-page order throwing out a libel lawsuit filed in 2016 against Reveal, a non-profit newsroom run by The Center for Investigative Reporting, by Planet Aid, an international charity that received U.S. government funds for aid programs. Planet Aid filed its lawsuit in August 2016 after Reveal published several stories based on almost two years of reporting which tied the charity to an alleged cult and raised questions about the charity’s spending. While the judge’s decision is an unequivocal legal win for Reveal, it took more than four-and-a-half years and millions of dollars to get there. (Columbia Journalism Review)
* Biden’s Big Bet: Tackling Climate Change Will Create Jobs, Not Kill Them (NYT)
* Biden's American Jobs Plan represents more than five times the climate spending the Obama administration secured in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. But it's still about five times too small to bring the U.S. economy's planet-heating emissions down to zero. [HuffPost]
* Biden’s infrastructure plan is a big bet on big government (WaPo)
* Thursday’s opening day baseball game between the New York Mets and Washington Nationals has been postponed due to Covid-19 issues. (CNN)
* Hospital workers despair as France’s virus strategy flails (AP)
* As Cuomo Sought $4 Million Book Deal, Aides Hid Damaging Death Toll (NYT)
* A dead gray whale was found Wednesday in the San Francisco Bay. Officials will conduct a necropsy to determine a potential cause of death. [S.F. Gate]
* Theory That COVID Came From A Chinese Lab Takes On New Life In Wake Of WHO Report (NPR)
* Grizzly bears are slowly expanding the turf where they roam in parts of the northern Rocky Mountains but need continued protections, according to government scientists who concluded that no other areas of the country would be suitable for reintroducing the fearsome predators. (AP)
* S&P 500 hits 4,000 on tech power, recovery optimism (Reuters)
* Pentagon Issues New Rules Overturning Trump’s Ban on Transgender Troops (NYT)
* Ancient coins may solve mystery of murderous 1600s pirate (AP)
* Rogers Hornsby’s Unbreakable Record -- For a five-year period in the 1920s, he hit better than .400. That won’t happen again. (WSJ)
* Area man: "Look, maybe one day King Kong and Godzilla could end up being friends, but right now, they seem to have some really bad blood." (The Onion)
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[NOTE: Thanks to my friend, the great journalist Robert J. Rosenthal, whose Facebook post pointed me to the CJR article about libel suits.]
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
And climb on every rung
Forever young
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