Court: Don't Bother Suing Talk Radio for Slander

[Cornflake the Destroyer]

Interesting story regarding a single lawsuit but with a reverberating decision:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/24/BA4B178L0N.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea

"A federal appeals court had some advice Friday for anyone whose reputation gets trashed on talk radio: Don't bother suing for slander, because no one reasonably expects objective facts from the typical talk show host."

 

[The Ultimate Warrior]

That is an odd interpretation of the story...

Besides, the court said, Martino was obviously relying on the caller's version of the facts and had no apparent reason to question it. That means he was just giving his own opinion of someone else's account, and wasn't making factual claims of his own, the panel said, citing a past ruling that allowed similar reliance on news articles.

Also...

The Gardners' lawsuit said the store's phone lines had been flooded within seconds of the broadcast and that some callers had threatened violence to the couple and their business. The store also became the target of insults shouted by drivers in the neighborhood for several weeks and suffered about $600,000 in lost business, the suit said.

Please, Martino's show is a 12th tier weekend talk program. Sounds like someone is looking for a payday.

 

[bk77]

"A federal appeals court had some advice Friday for anyone whose reputation gets trashed on talk radio: Don't bother suing for slander, because no one reasonably expects objective facts from the typical talk show host."

There are some websites out there who look at those talk show hosts ( and even radio jocks ) as far as their facts go...a few levels below Wikipedia.

Case in point a number of years back the food website Roadfood. Somebody from Western New York had posted a message on their forums about some local hockey player going off at a local Tops Supermarket. I think it was over the player getting sick thanks to some bad deli food. Anyway the news story appeared at the time on Buffalo's WBEN and WGR radio sites and the poster did put a link to those stations in their post. Anyway Roadfood still considered the post "false" and not only did they delete the post but they actually banned the poster for "telling stories" even though the poster had included the links in the post. I seem to recall not long after this incident Roadfood had put some kind of warning on their site telling people not to quote information they get from radio since radio folks tend to "spread lies" on the air.

Its been sometime since I have been to the Roadfood website so I have NO idea if that warning is still online or not.

 

[The Ultimate Warrior]

"A federal appeals court had some advice Friday for anyone whose reputation gets trashed on talk radio: Don't bother suing for slander, because no one reasonably expects objective facts from the typical talk show host."

There are some websites out there who look at those talk show hosts ( and even radio jocks ) as far as their facts go...a few levels below Wikipedia.

Case in point a number of years back the food website Roadfood. Somebody from Western New York had posted a message on their forums about some local hockey player going off at a local Tops Supermarket. I think it was over the player getting sick thanks to some bad deli food. Anyway the news story appeared at the time on Buffalo's WBEN and WGR radio sites and the poster did put a link to those stations in their post. Anyway Roadfood still considered the post "false" and not only did they delete the post but they actually banned the poster for "telling stories" even though the poster had included the links in the post. I seem to recall not long after this incident Roadfood had put some kind of warning on their site telling people not to quote information they get from radio since radio folks tend to "spread lies" on the air.

Its been sometime since I have been to the Roadfood website so I have NO idea if that warning is still online or not.

Soooo.... some means 1 and maybe it's there?

Sounds like you have some credibility issues.

 

[bk77]

"A federal appeals court had some advice Friday for anyone whose reputation gets trashed on talk radio: Don't bother suing for slander, because no one reasonably expects objective facts from the typical talk show host."

There are some websites out there who look at those talk show hosts ( and even radio jocks ) as far as their facts go...a few levels below Wikipedia.

Case in point a number of years back the food website Roadfood. Somebody from Western New York had posted a message on their forums about some local hockey player going off at a local Tops Supermarket. I think it was over the player getting sick thanks to some bad deli food. Anyway the news story appeared at the time on Buffalo's WBEN and WGR radio sites and the poster did put a link to those stations in their post. Anyway Roadfood still considered the post "false" and not only did they delete the post but they actually banned the poster for "telling stories" even though the poster had included the links in the post. I seem to recall not long after this incident Roadfood had put some kind of warning on their site telling people not to quote information they get from radio since radio folks tend to "spread lies" on the air.

Its been sometime since I have been to the Roadfood website so I have NO idea if that warning is still online or not.

Soooo.... some means 1 and maybe it's there?

Sounds like you have some credibility issues.

I can think of a few others...

Coasterbuzz.com
Remembering Retail
Deadmalls.com
Labelscar

all of them has/had "issues" with those who had posted infomation they had received from radio. Of course none of those sites are media sites. Actually I still have the email from the webmaster of the Dead Mall website telling that the next time I use "WTAM" as a source for a post...I can kiss that site goodbye. One of the Cleveland malls had went out of business and I posted a link of this from WTAM. Thats a No No with Deadmalls but had I used say "WEWS-TV" or a newspaper link, they told me that would be OK. Maybe the webmaster simply doesn't like radio.

Roadfood is a large site and who knows if that warning is still there ( I am sure my account is no longer active there , its been 4 years ) but I am pretty sure Roadfood is still owned by Mike & Jane Stern and neither is hardly a fan of radio. There were bashing it when I saw them appear on Baltimore's WBAL-TV several years ago. As I remember some radio host slammed the Sterns about a review they did on a restaurant the host had money in. I guess the Sterns held a grudge.

 

[nmoore6676]

That is an odd interpretation of the story...

Besides, the court said, Martino was obviously relying on the caller's version of the facts and had no apparent reason to question it. That means he was just giving his own opinion of someone else's account, and wasn't making factual claims of his own, the panel said, citing a past ruling that allowed similar reliance on news articles.

Also...

The Gardners' lawsuit said the store's phone lines had been flooded within seconds of the broadcast and that some callers had threatened violence to the couple and their business. The store also became the target of insults shouted by drivers in the neighborhood for several weeks and suffered about $600,000 in lost business, the suit said.

Please, Martino's show is a 12th tier weekend talk program. Sounds like someone is looking for a payday.

12th tier, perhaps but he probably wants to move up to 11th, 10th, and so on. Well to do that he needs attention and that is what he has gotten here.

Remember too that if some incarnation of the so called “fairness doctrine” gets enacted then most of the top tier talk shows are dead. So you may have Rush coming back as a consumer advocate or sports aficionado. Of course he and some others might just take the money and run but my point is that all of these weekend formats and sports talk may someday be all that remains. After all the talk shows of today had their roots on weekends and overnights when music was still king of the AM dial.

I myself would be more of an advocate for truth in advertising, and especially political ads where hyperbole rules. I am intelligent enough to know that the so called shock jocks of radio are creating an artificial excitement and I rely on them not even as much as Wikipedia which I also take with more than a single grain of salt.