Salem Sues Insurer Over Denied Defamation Claims Coverage - Radio Ink
Salem Media Group has filed a lawsuit against Atlantic Specialty Insurance Company over the insurer's refusal to cover defamation claims.
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Does Salem have a case?
- Thread starter 30james
- Start date
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K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Indeed it does. As with any insurance policy, there are coverage specifics and (most importantly) exclusion from coverage. If the insurance company can prove that Salem's policy did not cover the defamation claims referenced, then it's "sorry, Charlie".
I would imagine, though, that Salem's lawyers believe they can make a case that the claims are covered and if they can, that makes a difference.
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Salem is sued for the same defamation allegations related to the 2020 elections that got Rudy Giuliani removed from WABC Radio New York. Fox News and basically everybody aligned with Trump got sued for the same stuff. It's a case of once your business model is too dependent on a certain demographic and it goes against reality then it will cause all sorts of trouble and it's the very issue that put Salem Media there.
You would have thought that Salem may have shown this to their insurance company BEFORE releasing/backing it so the insurance company could have said "Are you outta your minds?!?! Delete this, edit that, etc. before you let it out into the wild or we're washing our hands of you! YOU can say 'God will provide' but we sure won't if you let this out without the cuts"
I don't think so, K.M.
Defamation insurance covers you to a point. The line is when you knowingly, intentionally and/or maliciously say stuff that's not true.
Salem had no evidence (because there was no evidence) that the claims made in 2000 Mules were true.
If you put a straw in a bottle of Jack Daniels, drive your car at 100 MPH and crash into something, Flo from Progressive will tell you to go f*** yourself. Same here.
There has been a blurring between news and "entertainment that wants to be taken seriously as factual". Throw in Religion and the Internet which allows anyone's opinion to spread world wide and innocent folks will get slandered.
IMHO the First Amendment was never intended to be used to hide behind to spread lies that one "wishes were true". The best I can this was not a mistake which when discovered has an immediate correction and apology. If Salem was insured to knowingly present misinformation then that Insurance company was stupid. If Salem stretchs this thing to cover opinion and wishful thinking as news then getting insurance for all news gathering operations will become impossible or prohibitally expensive.
IMHO the First Amendment was never intended to be used to hide behind to spread lies that one "wishes were true". The best I can this was not a mistake which when discovered has an immediate correction and apology. If Salem was insured to knowingly present misinformation then that Insurance company was stupid. If Salem stretchs this thing to cover opinion and wishful thinking as news then getting insurance for all news gathering operations will become impossible or prohibitally expensive.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Then Salem has been getting bad advice from its attorneys for a while now, it would seem.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I can't think of any insurance company that would make any such kind of determination in the absence of a claim. They (rightly) would operate on the presumption that the insured had qualified legal counsel to prevent non-covered statements from being released. As I said above, apparently that's not part of Salem's process, but I bet Ed and Stu are thinking about that now.
If not, perhaps they are planning on hiring God for their future liability insurance needs. 😜
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Part of the problem, which was brought on by the proliferation of websites that have a First Amendment right to "publish" whatever they want under the guise of "opinion" (which seems to include "wishful thinking" more and more these days), is that there is no standard for fact-checking all of these sites, much less force a disclaimer about the posts being opinion and/or not verifiable from accepted sources. For that matter, those who post said misinformation tend to not accept the verifying sources as legitimate, either ... they are more likely to use each other as the verification and the circular nature of that, when made clear by those who do not deal in misinformation, is always going to be countered with claims of "fake news" (ironically).
So there is a gray area (or loophole) in which anything can be "proven" by using sites which themselves are not "proven" as "proof" of authenticity and factual correctness. And -- to use a well worn cliché -- there's no putting that toothpaste back in the tube now.
Nah. To the people who are seeking to rationalize their printing it, or who want their biases confirmed, sure. But using someone else's equally flawed reporting as proof or as a defense for your own defamation of an individual, group of people or business doesn't stand up in court.
In 30 years in TV newsrooms, covering a lot of government and courts stories, I worked closely with the stations' legal counsels. The good attorneys are there to make sure you don't inadvertently find yourself needing your insurance. And if you do, you need those attorneys to explain to the insurer, even if you got it wrong, why any reasonable professional would have found whatever information you had for your story compelling and credible enough to air or print.
Salem appears to have watched Sidney Powell and Rudy Guiliani and said "Hey! That looks like fun!"
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Which takes me back to my original comment on bad advice.
Also, I didn't mean to imply that my response to secondchoice constituted a legal defense, just the mindset that seems to be prevailing more and more these days.
As we've seen in the past few years in the world of right-wing politics and media, though, K.M., "bad advice" hardly covers it. This isn't "flawed advice of counsel"---it's complicit people with law degrees who see the agenda as the important thing and worry about the truth and legalities on the back end.
Lotsa folks getting disbarred, and Salem's counsel, depending on their involvement in 2000 Mules, could be next.
I'm not a lawyer, but knowingly spreading false information is either not protected or not as protected by the First Amendment depending on the situation. Ask Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, or Fox News how that worked for them. Even though the latter two didn't admit any wrongdoing, I can't imagine an innocent party firing its biggest moneymaker and paying a roughly $3/4 billion settlement. The lines, though, can be blurry at times. I seem to remember Jones and Fox News arguing in both of their cases that they were entertainment and not intended to be taken seriously. I can't remember if Jones actually used that explanation at trial or if it was an attempt to get the lawsuit thrown out, but, whatever the situation, it didn't work. Fox likely knew the same defense wasn't going to work if it went to trial.
I'm friends with a former co-worker on Facebook who will repost any meme or disinformation article so long as it conforms to her worldview. She's even posted an article denying the moon landing. Facebook could (and has) suspended her several times, but she would likely receive First Amendment protection from any lawsuits. She believes 100% in what she says and is simply too stupid to realize she's posting false information.
The first amendment says:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"
If one of you part-time lawyers can help me out, I would me most appreciative because I fail to see the "knowingly spreading false information" exception to it.
Again, not a lawyer, but here's what the Encyclopedia Britannica says about it. Maybe my efforts to sum the situation up was overly simplistic, but "defamatory lies," which was what I was trying to convey, are not protected by the First Amendment.
www.britannica.com
First Amendment - Free Speech, Press, Religion
First Amendment - Free Speech, Press, Religion: Despite the broad freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment, there are some historically rooted exceptions. First, the government may generally restrict the time, place, or manner of speech, if the restrictions are unrelated to what...
www.britannica.com
Simple. A defendant can win a libel/slander/defamation case if they can satisfy a judge or jury that they were merely expressing an opinion.
If it's something you've printed or broadcast as news, with no disclosure that it's opinion and no factual basis for it, that's a losing case for a defendant.
I fail to see the law congress passed that made knowingly defaming a private citizen by a news organization OK.
The first five words have a purpose.
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