Led by the Pensacola News Journal, Florida newspapers have won an important legal victory protecting them from lawsuits challenging accurate reporting that might cast someone in a bad light.
From a story yesterday in the Tallahassee Democrat: "The Florida Supreme Court, in a pair of rulings, said libel and defamation lawsuits offer enough protection and refused to recognize false-light invasion of privacy as grounds to sue. The decisions served to uphold a lower-court ruling that tossed out an $18.3 million judgment against the Pensacola News Journal and its parent company, Gannett.''
Ivey, and Corporate politics
Wasn't this the lawsuit that landed then-Publisher Denise Ivey in Corporate's doghouse, before she was briefly liberated by now-retired newspaper division chief Sue Clark-Johnson? Ivey, publisher of The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., is reportedly now back in Pensacola as a consultant -- a victim of June's Friday Afternoon Massacre.
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Calling this ruling a victory for Gannett or newspapers is putting lipstick on a pig. Everybody involved in this case knows it was simply about sloppy editing. It has been an expensive exercise for Gannett that could've been avoided completely with a better editor.
ReplyDeleteI'll second that.
ReplyDelete