SJR January 2009:z-Issue Template
1/26/09
5:07 PM
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SPORTS TEAMS Continued from page 14
thing it does. In addition, the city has abandoned the commitment it should have had to education, to industry and transportation, to its citizens. Nothing happened when St. Louis lost pro basketball either, though a great deal did and/or will happen at the departure of McDonnell Douglas, TWA, the Sporting News, Ford’s Hazelwood plant, Pulitzer Publishing and many others. Mizzou’s hype Post columnist Bryan Burwell, with the wide eyes and innocent expression of a fan (though he doesn’t have to pay for his tickets), continues to buy into the material being disgorged and spread thickly in his direction by the Mizzou athletic department. His groveling infatuation with the football team took no pause as the team, gurgling with the hot air of its early-season victories, collapsed when real opposition lifted its head. And the same thing has happened to basketball. Opponents like Northern South Carolina, Southern Northern Alabama, SIU-Edwardsville and others of similar ilk may pad scoring totals and bring merciless victories, but when the big kids of the Big 12 come into Columbia, they will trounce the Tigers as if they were red-headed step-children. The Tigers will have no game toughness, no knowledge of their own inabilities. Doesn’t the basketball coach talk to the football coach? Don’t they read the results of each other’s games? And look at what happened when the Tigers met their first Big 12 opponent, the obviously awe-inspiring powerhouse Nebraska Cornhuskers. ■
ARGUS Continued from page 16
In 2006, Ketcher was campaign manager for Missourians for Lifesaving Cures, a group promoting the embryonic-stem-cell initiative on the November 2006 ballot. In 2002, Ketcher worked for Citizens for a Healthy Missouri that unsuccessfully promoted a cigarette tax earmarked for health care and education. Efforts to get on-the-record comments from the Argus were unsuccessful. ■
LIBEL Continued from page 17
front-page story prior to the election stating that Connaughton, the challenger, had engaged in “dirty tricks” and offered witnesses jobs and trips to promote the scandal. Connaughton sued for libel. Subsequent court proceedings showed that the newspaper had interviewed persons critical of Connaughton but had not interviewed a key person who could support his contention that he had done no wrong. The newspaper also chose not to listen to a tape recording Connaughton made of a key conversation and provided to the newspaper. “It is utterly bewildering in light of the fact that the Journal News (Hamilton, Ohio) committed substantial resources to investigating Thompson’s (a woman involved) claims, yet chose not to interview the one witness who was most likely to confirm Thompson‘s
account of the events,” The Supreme Court decision stated. “By the time the November 1 story appeared, six witnesses had consistently and categorically denied Thompson’s allegations, yet the newspaper chose not to interview the one witness that both Thompson and Connaughton claimed would verify their conflicting accounts of the relevant events.” In the case, the Supreme Court majority wrote of its public-figure exception to libel: “We have not gone so far, however, as to accord the press absolute immunity in its coverage of public figures or elections. If a false and defamatory statement is published with knowledge of falsity or a reckless disregard for the truth, the public figure may prevail …. Based on our review of the entire record, we agree with the Court of Appeals that the evidence did in fact support a finding of actual malice.” Coach sued over claim he lied The 1990 case of Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co. was pursued for many years by the wrestling coach at the Maple Heights High School in Ohio, His team was involved in a 1974 brawl that resulted in the hospitalizations of four players from the opposing team. Disciplinary proceedings by the state high school athletic association followed. A sportswriter and columnist who had attended the wrestling match wrote a column charging the coach with lying under oath about events leading to the brawl. When Coach Milkovich sued, the newspaper claimed the column was protected by an opinion privilege or a contention of “rhetorical hyperbole.’’ After numerous proceedings, the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which found that an insinuation of perjury was not protected by the cover of opinion. “The connotation that petitioner committed perjury is sufficiently factual to be susceptible of being proved true or false.” The case was remanded to state courts and the newspaper settled with Milkovich out of court. Other protections against libel claims remain, Sableman said. News media cannot be sued successfully for libel following the publication of communications that are considered privileged. “We have a privilege that attends to reporting things from the public record because there is a public interest in people knowing those things. We are exempt from libel even if a story is false and defamatory, such as an accusation of murder a gainst a man who is later acquitted.” The media also cannot be sued for political advertising broadcast by an opposition candidate. “The Federal Communications Act says broadcast stations may not refuse to accept an ad from a political candidate. The consequence of that, in the no-censorship, no-liability section of the act, is that the station is not liable for the content of ads from a political candidate,” Sableman said. How about that wonderful world of reasoned discourse on talk radio and, sometimes, pundit television, where anyone can be accused of virtually anything? The courts have created the term “rhetorical hyperbole” for such language. “There is no question that talk radio is pretty outrageous in a lot of situations, but a lot of what they get away with is rhetorical hyperbole. It is opinion—statements that are so extreme they are not taken literally,” Sableman said. ■
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