Blogger Sued

Hunting Bloggers:

This should be fun.

Lawyers who filed the suit say that Web logs and other new media should be held to the same standards of accountability as traditional media and journalism. Brodbkorb, a former operative for the Minnesota Republican Party, pledges to protect his source and to keep his website going.

The suit alleges that Brodkorb, citing an unnamed source, defamed the St. Paul-based public relations firm New School Communications when he posted a claim that New School had become publicly critical of the congressional campaign of Coleen Rowley only after Rowley rejected a contract with the firm.

Despite being told that New School does not perform political campaign work, Brodkorb, the suit says, continues to make the claim, even though his source "may, in fact, be a fabrication."

If you do some follow-up reading on the blog in question, you'll see that it appears that the claims he made have support from several traditional journalistic outlets. That's going to be a problem for the PR firm when they get to court. They could still win, if the get a sympathetic jury (everyone loves it when corporations attempt to sue the little guy, right?), but it makes it less likely.

What is more likely is that they'll lose their case, while getting enough media attention drawn to the blogger's claims as to convince the world that those claims are true. Thus, at best they might win damages the blogger probably can't pay (I'm sure we all have $50,000 in liquid assets sitting around, right?) while humiliating their client; more likely, they'll lose while humiliating their client.

But those would have been the options even if the likelihood of winning were reversed: even if victory were certain, the media attention from the case would train the spotlight on the blogger's charges. That suggests that the PR firm was not acting out of a desire to win the lawsuit, but a desire to use the suit to silence the blogger without a trial. The firm doubtless thought the blogger would fold, being unable to afford to mount a legal defense. This kind of rank intimidation is nothing but an attempt to use the simple weight of money to push people around.

Jeff Blanco suggests that the blogger has done all he ought to do by providing a comments section in which the PR firm can dispute his claim, and there is something to that argument. Just like here at Grim's Hall, commenters can post evidence and argument to prove that the blogger is wrong. I've been proven wrong just now and again by readers, at least two of whom -- Eric Blair and Captain Leggett -- are now co-bloggers here.

If I say something you think is flat wrong, or untrue, you're invited to prove it in real time and with the full attention of the readership. The ability to do that is something that makes blogs different from newspapers, say, where the best you can hope for is a correction, published someday, without fanfare, and hidden somewhere inside the paper instead of on the front page.

I don't know if that satisfies the legalities for libel, it surely must go a long way. I've always heard that truth is an absolute defense against a charge of libel, so "I have every reason to think this is true, and invite any evidence to the contrary to be published right here" isn't too far away from simple truth.

Indeed, it's the closest thing to the scientific method that "journalism" (for this purpose, to include bloggers) has ever developed. The scientific method is of course the best way humanity has found to determine where uncertain truths can be found. As long as the method is administered honestly, commenters are allowed to post evidence and argument, and the blogger will admit if he is proven wrong on a point, I think the system must be judged as good as any newspaper correction from a legal standpoint. It is certainly better, from a practical one.