Monday, August 18, 2014
Arizona Free Enterprise Club and the criminalization of politics.
http://ballots.blogspot.com/2014/08/arizona-free-enterprize-club-and.html
" 'Arizona Free Enterprise Club violated election law' ” reports Hasen.
The quotes are important here. Hasen is not making the claim himself, but is quoting a media outlet. Similarly I am not making the claim myself, but quoting Hasen quoting somebody else.
The article is here: http://www.azfamily.com/news/Arizona-Free-Enterprise-Club-violated-election-law-271540271.html.
The source for the article is AP, but my guess is that the headline was added by azfamily.com, which seems to be a tv station, channel 3. Headlines have the difficult job of distilling an article into a few words. The lede of the article is "PHOENIX (AP) -- State officials say the Arizona Free Enterprise Club has broken election laws by not declaring itself a political committee."
The key words there are "state officials say." My concern is that headline may be defamatory.
It accuses the Free Enterprise Club of having violated law, which, if it turns out not to be true, would be defamatory per se. When I read the article, I was surprised that it wasn't reporting a conviction, but merely an accusation and finding of probable cause. I express no opinion about whether the Free Enterprise Club is or isn't guilty of anything. There are First Amendment issues at stake, as well as state constitutional issues, and these cases can go either way. But here, as so often, the media outlet is giving only the state's side of the story.
That's bad journalism. But the headline convicts before trial, and that might give rise to liability.
A retraction would be in order.
I am no expert on defamation, but some courts are lenient about false headlines on a true story. http://www.editteach.org/journalism_research?research_id=30
And it is possible that Free Enterprise Club (FEC?) will eventually be duly convicted.
But if FEC wanted to fight back, a stern letter promising a libel action might get some attention.
The source for the article is AP, but my guess is that the headline was added by azfamily.com, which seems to be a tv station, channel 3. Headlines have the difficult job of distilling an article into a few words. The lede of the article is "PHOENIX (AP) -- State officials say the Arizona Free Enterprise Club has broken election laws by not declaring itself a political committee."
The key words there are "state officials say." My concern is that headline may be defamatory.
It accuses the Free Enterprise Club of having violated law, which, if it turns out not to be true, would be defamatory per se. When I read the article, I was surprised that it wasn't reporting a conviction, but merely an accusation and finding of probable cause. I express no opinion about whether the Free Enterprise Club is or isn't guilty of anything. There are First Amendment issues at stake, as well as state constitutional issues, and these cases can go either way. But here, as so often, the media outlet is giving only the state's side of the story.
That's bad journalism. But the headline convicts before trial, and that might give rise to liability.
A retraction would be in order.
I am no expert on defamation, but some courts are lenient about false headlines on a true story. http://www.editteach.org/journalism_research?research_id=30
And it is possible that Free Enterprise Club (FEC?) will eventually be duly convicted.
But if FEC wanted to fight back, a stern letter promising a libel action might get some attention.
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