That a given rumor wasn’t verified before publishing is moot; too many facts can sink a good story.
Usually, these prurient enterprises are accompanied by journalistic and legal ass-covering: The rumors we’re spreading probably aren’t true, but it’s our duty to tell you what others are saying.
I used to call this “the Virgin Rule.” We let others go first; then we report what they report. Today, it’s too much work to explain “virgin” and “rule.”
I prefer the Italian mani pulite, clean hands.
But our coverage of unproven rumors isn’t clean. Neither are our hands.
That kind of wink-and-nod might have worked for some people some of the time before the tsunami of social media and the internet. What used to be “publish and be damned” is now “write for the web and correct later.”
Think of presidential stains on “a blue Gap dress.” That rumor was out there for days before news media found it on the emerging online Drudge Report. Even then, it took days to develop into a credible story that almost brought down our chief executive and commander-in-chief.
That’s so then. Not now. Once a rumor is out there, partisan wingnuts who infest the internet and social media push ugly, unproven suspicions until the news media have to report the phenomenon. Virgins and rules are nowhere to be seen.
To fulfill our duty to inform the public, even when we know nothing, we have to report the spread of the damaging rumor.
Sometimes, as the Gap dress proved, a defamatory rumor can be true. On the other hand, the “birther” controversy over Obama’s origin began as a rumor but followed a familiar trajectory into LaLa Land where it still is embraced by Donald Trump, among others.
Lack of candor fuels the defamation industry. Rightwing echo chambers started the rumor that Hillary had a stroke or some other neurological impairment (beyond their standard accusation of congenital dishonesty).
Hillary’s staff failed to honestly confirm that she’d had a concussion and blood clot after a 2012 fall, arousing deeper suspicions about her medical condition, her honesty and news media complicity.
More recently, London’s Daily Mail tabloid and Mailonline/DailyMail.com defamed Melania Trump by accusation and innuendo. Challenged, the paper and website issued this year’s champion Golden Grovel:
“On August 20, 2016, an article was published in the Daily Mail newspaper titled ‘Racy photos, and troubling questions about his wife's past that could derail Trump.’
“The article discussed whether allegations being made about Melania Trump could negatively affect her husband Donald Trump's presidential bid. Among other things, the article noted that allegations have been made in a book available on Amazon about a modeling agency where Mrs. Trump worked in Milan being 'something like a gentleman's club,' and an article published by Suzy, a Slovenian magazine, alleged that Mrs. Trump's modeling agency in New York, run by Paolo Zampolli, 'operated as an escort agency for wealthy clients.'
“The article, which was also published online by the Mailonline/DailyMail.com website under the headline 'Naked photoshoots, and troubling questions about visas that won't go away: The VERY racy past of Donald Trump's Slovenian wife' did not intend to state or suggest that these allegations are true, nor did it intend to state or suggest that Mrs. Trump ever worked as an 'escort' or in the 'sex business.'
“To the contrary, The Daily Mail newspaper article stated that there was no support for the allegations, and it provided adamant denials from Mrs. Trump's spokesperson and from Mr. Zampolli.
“The point of the article was that these allegations could impact the U.S. presidential election even if they are untrue.
Mrs. Trump's counsel in the U.S. and the U.K. have stated unequivocally that the allegations about the modeling agencies are false.
“To the extent that anything in the Daily Mail's article was interpreted as stating or suggesting that Mrs. Trump worked as an 'escort' or in the 'sex business,' that she had a 'composite or presentation card for the sex business' or that either of the modeling agencies referenced in the article were engaged in these businesses, it is hereby retracted, and the Daily Mail newspaper regrets any such misinterpretation.
“The Daily Mail newspaper and MailOnline/DailyMail.com have entirely separate editors and journalistic teams. In so far as MailOnline/DailyMail.com published the same article it wholeheartedly also retracts the above and also regrets any such misinterpretation.”
Wonderful. It’s a perfect Virgin Rule or mani pulite moment. Someone else said it first. We’re just telling you.
In this country, Melania Trump filed a $150 million defamation lawsuit against the U.S. publisher of the Daily Mail and an unrelated blogger over their reports (since retracted) that she worked as an escort in the 1990s.
According to the Huffington Post, her suit claims egregious, malicious and harmful actions of the publication and the blogger, and which were “tremendously damaging to her personal and professional reputation.”
The Daily Mail is one of a number of publications that reported the allegations. It removed the story from its website.
Blogger Webster G. Tarpley, issued a formal retraction of his report. Tarpley said his online Morning Briefing on tarpley.net “referenced unfounded rumors and innuendo regarding Melania Trump … and her life prior to her marriage. The August 2, 2016 morning briefing asserted that it was widely known that Melania Trump previously worked as an escort and that Mrs. Trump was in fear of revelations that she used to work as an escort. The briefing also stated that multiple unnamed sources stated that Mrs. Trump was in a state of apoplectic tantrum, was suffering from a full-blown nervous breakdown, that both Melania Trump and Donald J. Trump feared the revelations coming to light and that Mrs. Trump’s condition was negatively affecting the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump.
“While the tarpley.net editors, writers and contributors did not generate said rumors, the briefing in question was not diligent in fact-checking or maintaining a healthy distance between innuendo and fact. As such, Webster G. Tarpley, as editor of the content that appears on tarpley.net, hereby officially retracts the August 2, 2016 morning briefing in full and apologizes to Mrs. Trump for any duress and harm she may have endured as a result of the contents of the August 2, 2016 morning briefing.”
A couple comments: Statements by Daily Mail and Tarpley were defamatory. Defamation in this country has constitutional protection. Winning a suit can be tough for a public figure.
In this case, a court probably will say Melania Trump is a public figure. In that case, she’ll first have to show that Daily Mail/Tarpley knew the defamation was false when they published it or they published it with reckless disregard for whether it was false.
Curmudgeon Notes:
• There was a missing fact in The Cincinnati Enquirer’s extensive story about price gouging by the maker of EpiPen: cost of the drug. When the Canadian Broadcasting Co. looked into the stunning increase, its reporter found that the key ingredient, epinephrine, costs about $1 a gram and each EpiPen injection involves one-third of a gram … or 33 cents worth. Moreover, the drug has been around for decades; no R&D costs here.
• I cheered Rick Green’s arrival as Enquirer publisher 18 months ago and the changes he and his chosen editor, Peter Bhatia, brought to the demoralized newsroom and readers. They gave talented reporters the time and resources to pursue stories involving public funds and officials.
Green is moving on and up. That’s no surprise in the aggressively Darwinian Gannett empire where he has risen steadily since being my colleague and editor at The Enquirer.
Rick will be vice president/news and editor of Gannett Co. Inc.’s newest acquisition, the North Jersey Media Group, which includes The Record of Bergen County across the George Washington Bridge from New York City.
The Enquirer said Gannett added the assets of North Jersey Media Group to its USA Today Network this summer. “This was an unanticipated opportunity to help lead a large, award-winning newsroom in the most competitive market in the country,” Rick said in the paper. “It is hard to describe my love of my native Ohio, the Cincinnati region and especially Enquirer Media. It always will be home. However, I could not pass up the chance to return to a newsroom … and work with such high-caliber journalists and storytellers.”
He’s not kidding. As long as I’ve known him, he’s wanted to be the Enquirer editor. The irony was that when he returned to Cincinnati, he had to find someone else to fill that cherished role. His brief stay demonstrates what a solid journalist/publisher with corporate support can do.
• Here’s another example of the news media reporting an unverified defamatory rumor about a public figure.
Thedailybeast.com says Glenn Beck says Mel Gibson says “Jewish people” stole a pre-release copy of the 2004 film, The Passion of the Christ, and used it to attack him. Critics said the film promoted anti-semitic stereotypes.
Thedailybeast.com quoted Beck on his recent radio show and on GlennBeck.com earlier this month, saying Gibson still blames Jews for his troubles.
Recalling Gibson’s complaint during a 90-minute “heart-to-heart” conversation, Beck paraphrased Gibson’s remarks this way:
“And then some Jewish people — I guess some rabbis or something, I didn’t get into it — somebody stole a copy of the movie before it was shown to anybody. … And then they did a deal in The New York Times with all these rabbis trashing him as an anti-Semite. And he said, ‘I couldn’t believe it. … Nobody was really upset that these guys stole the movie.’ ”
Reached by thedailybeast.com, Gibson’s publicist said he is unaware of such a conversation. Beck’s spokesman, likewise, shed no light on the conversation.
Abraham Foxman, the former executive director of the Anti-Defamation League, disputed the account of a stolen movie. Foxman said a Jewish religious adviser to The Passion sent a screenplay to the ADL and that a team of both Jewish and Christian biblical scholars prepared a detailed critique.
When they sent the critique to Gibson, “he went berserk and threatened to sue us, so we returned the script,” Foxman told thedailybeast.com.
The GlennBeck.com story about Beck’s chat with Gibson and a 6-minute video snippet of Beck’s narrative were removed from Beck’s website a few hours after they were initially posted with this editor’s note:
“This post has been removed because it inadvertently revealed details of an off-the-record conversation. We regret the error.”
Thedailybeast.com said it retrieved the original post using Google Cache.
Two years after the film’s release, in 2006, Gibson had a now-infamous roadside encounter with a sheriff’s deputy in Malibu who arrested him for DUI.
“Fucking Jews,” Gibson cursed at the deputy, according to the official police report unearthed by TMZ.com. “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. … Are you a Jew?”
Curmudgeon is repeating Beck’s story solely to critique Beck’s role in creating or sharing an unfounded rumor. And I’ve added the classic caveat to such news media defamations: It might not be true.
Even thedailybeast.com isn’t sure. As its story began, “If multimedia entrepreneur Glenn Beck is accurately recalling a recent conversation he says he had with the perpetually embattled Gibson…”
• Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson was stumped when an MSNBC interviewer asked him about Aleppo. “What is Aleppo?” he responded. After being told about the city and its misery, Johnson sagely added, “With regard to Syria, I do think that it’s a mess.”
The New York Times’ story about the flub recalled the day Johnson asked, “Who’s Harriet Tubman” when directed to a room named for the abolitionist and former slave.
Then the Times flaunted its own ignorance. Here are two corrections that followed the same Johnson story online:
“Correction: September 8, 2016
An earlier version of this article misidentified the de facto capital of the Islamic State. It is Raqqa, in northern Syria, not Aleppo.”
“Correction: September 8, 2016
An earlier version of the above correction misidentified the Syrian capital as Aleppo. It is Damascus.”
You can’t make this shit up.
• Untenured assistant professor Melissa Click was fired by the University of Missouri after calling on black students to lend her “some muscle” to get rid of journalists covering a public campus protest. Mizzou did the right thing.
She now has a new gig. Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., gave her a one-year appointment as an untenured lecturer in the communication studies department.
Fox cited a Kansas City Star story that quoted Elisabeth Mermann-Jozwiak, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, saying Gonzaga knew of Click’s recent history and was confident in welcoming her to the university.
The dean continued, “Dr. Click was hired through an extensive national search process that revealed her to be the most qualified and experienced candidate for the position. Dr. Click has excellent recommendations for both her teaching and scholarship, which includes an extensive record of publication. We are confident she has learned much from her experiences at the University of Missouri and believe she will uphold the rigorous standards of academic excellence demanded of Gonzaga faculty and students.”
• What did we expect? Fox News’ Chris Wallace says it’s not his job to challenge lies and unfounded accusations by candidates when he oversees the first presidential debate.
HuffingtonPost.com quotes Wallace telling colleague Howard Kurtz that his aim to “ask smart questions” and “engage the two (candidates) in conversation.”
As for lies and unfounded accusations, Wallace said, “I do not believe that it’s my job to be a truth squad. It’s up to the other person to catch them on that. I certainly am going to try to maintain some semblance of equal time if one of them is filibustering, I’m going to try to break in respectfully and give the other person a chance to talk.”
That should be a relief to Trump, knowing that Fox remains on his side despite the forced departure of ally Roger Ailes as head of the network.
• At the Commander in Chief Forum last week, NBC’s Matt Lauer didn’t challenge Trump’s lie about always opposing the Iraq War, although it has been documented for years. Lauer’s performance was so bad that he made the candidates look good as they struggled to overcome his lack of preparation and ineptitude. Host of the Today show, Lauer clearly was out of his element.
• Reason prevailed in Oregon where federal prosecutors say they want to drop a conspiracy charge against a Cincinnatian involved in the armed takeover of a national wildlife refuge.
The Enquirer reports that online radio host Peter Santilli wasn’t armed, didn’t spend nights with the occupiers and argued that the First Amendment protected his activities as a journalist.
However, he made no secret of his support for the occupiers then or since, telling The Enquirer he was a spokesman and international media coordinator for the militia group involved in the takeover.
Santilli was among more than two dozen protesters swept up in the federal indictments when the occupation ended.
• Trump’s news media blacklist is ending, according to CNN. He denied credentials for his events to the Washington Post, Des Moines Register and internet journalism sites Daily Beast, Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, Politico and others.
His hostility is no less intense than Hillary Clinton’s, but it lacks subtlety. He denounced news media and individual journalists and threatened to use the Oval Office to circumvent constitutional protections found in the First Amendment.
CONTACT BEN L. KAUFMAN: [email protected]
