As we wait to see how Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion against the Russian government turns out, it’s worth remembering that Walter Lippmann conceived of objectivity as a response to the Western press’ — and especially The New York Times’ — being guided by wishful thinking in its coverage of the Russian Revolution. And here we are again.
As Lippmann disparagingly observed more than 100 years ago, the thrust of Western coverage was that the Bolshevik forces and, later, the nascent Soviet state were bound to fall. In “Liberty and the News” (1920), Lippmann and his co-author, Charles Merz, wrote:
In the large, the news about Russia is a case of seeing not what was, but what men wished to see…. From the point of view of professional journalism the reporting of the Russian Revolution is nothing short of a disaster. On the essential questions the net effect was almost always misleading, and misleading news is worse than none at all.
We don’t know what’s going to happen in the hours and days ahead. Prigozhin has come out against Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, and so of course we hope Prigozhin might somehow prevail, even though his venality is at least the equal of Putin’s. If nothing else, it seems logical that chaos in Russia is good news for Ukraine.
As a number of observers have lamented, the days when you could curate a reliable news feed on Twitter are over — although Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo has put together a good list of analysts tweeting about the Ukraine crisis. I’m also following live coverage at the Times (which is behind a paywall) and at BBC News (which is free). And hoping for the best.
First time in the Middlesex Fells in a few months, and I was happy to see that the restoration of the North Reservoir dam is finally complete. The road has been reopened and the water level has been restored to its normal level. Also: The Mosquito Rapture must have taken place, because there wasn’t a single one that I could detect. I’m not complaining.
Since early 2021, Google has faced legal challenges over its control of digital advertising. Essentially, the tech giant stands accused of violating antitrust law by controlling all aspects of the ad market. As Paul Farrell, the lawyer for a group of seven newspapers in West Virginia, told Gretchen A. Peck of the trade publication Editor & Publisher:
They [Google] have completely monetized and commercialized their search engine, and what they’ve also done is create an advertising marketplace in which they represent and profit from the buyers and the sellers, while also owning the exchange. Google is the broker for the buyer and gets a commission. Google is the broker for the seller and gets a commission. Google owns, operates and sets the rules for the ad exchange. And they are also in the market themselves.
The suit filed by Farrell on behalf of the West Virginia papers was later joined by about 200 papers and included Facebook, which was accused of colluding with Google in order to receive preferential treatment. Attorneys general in Texas and several other states filed a separate suit, with BuzzFeed News reporting that the CEOs of Google and Facebook “personally signed off on a secret advertising deal.” The Justice Department got involved, and the European Union is suing Google on similar grounds.
On Tuesday, Google’s legal woes grew that much more complicated as Gannett, the country’s largest newspaper chain, filed its own lawsuit against Google in federal district court. Writing in USA Today, Gannett’s flagship publication, chair and CEO Mike Reed accused Google of “monopolization of advertising technology markets and deceptive commercial practices.” He added:
The core of the case and our position is that Google abuses its control over the ad server monopoly to make it increasingly difficult for rival exchanges to run competitive auctions. Further, Google’s exchange rigs its own auctions so Google’s advertisers can buy ad space at bargain prices. That means less investment in online content and fewer ad slots for publishers to sell and advertisers to buy. Google always wins because it takes a growing share of that shrinking pie.
In addition to USA Today, Gannett owns about 200 daily papers and other publications across the country, including local papers such as the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester, The Patriot Ledger of Quincy, the MetroWest Daily News of Framingham and The Providence Journal.
So why did Reed decide to file his own lawsuit rather than joining antitrust efforts that are already under way? It’s a good question, and it’s one that Editor & Publisher’s Mike and Robin Blinder asked him about in their vodcast, “E&P Reports.” Reed’s answer: “You know, as far as us going by ourselves, we just felt like we had the right size, we had the right legal counsel, and we felt like we didn’t want to wait.”
Jeff Jarvis, a well-known digital media observer and director of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism, was critical of the Gannett suit, telling E&P:
It is tragic that once-great Gannett is resorting to protectionism and retribution against its competitors rather than have a strategy for innovation and growth in a changed marketplace. There are legitimate questions to be addressed regarding Google’s power in both sides of the advertising market and authorities in both Europe and the U.S. are investigating them. But for Gannett to blame Google’s alleged monopoly for its present troubles is just sad.
But you can disparage Gannett for decimating its newspapers while still supporting legal efforts to hold Google to account. Few media observers have been more critical of Gannett than my What Works partner Ellen Clegg and I. Greed and crushing debt have led the chain to cut its journalistic capacity far more deeply than would have otherwise been necessary. Yet it’s simply a fact that very little digital advertising money has flowed to the news business, and that lack of innovation on the part of the news business is only partly to blame. If news publishers and government investigators are able to show that situation is either partly or wholly the result of illegal practices on the part of Google (and Facebook), then there’s no reason why Gannett shouldn’t be one of the beneficiaries, regardless of the company’s otherwise loathsome behavior.
Moreover, the antitrust route strikes me as far more promising than congressional efforts to force Google and Facebook to pay for the news they repurpose. Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act on a bipartisan 14-7 vote, according to Ted Johnson of Deadline. The JCPA would allow the news business to bargain collectively with Google and Facebook for a share of their revenues. Even if the JCPA passes the full Senate, though, it seems unlikely to prevail in the Republican-controlled House. A similar law in Australia has served mainly to enrich press baron Rupert Murdoch, and there’s no guarantee that the JCPA would bolster journalism at the local level.
Regulating a monopoly often leads to unintended negative consequences. Breaking one up, as Gannett and its numerous co-plaintiffs would like to do, can spark innovation. Local news today is getting by through a combination of paywalls, low-value programmatic ads and — in the nonprofit sector — foundation grants, membership fees and events. Nothing would be more welcome than to see that bolstered by a reinvigorated ad market.
Sports builds character, we are told over and over again. And yet Massachusetts has been hit with multiple cases of racist, homophobic harassment aimed at high school athletes.
🗽The New England Muzzles🗽
The leading journalist tracking those cases is Bob Hohler of The Boston Globe, who’s reported on horrifying cases in Danvers, Woburn, Duxbury and elsewhere. Yet his efforts to dig deeper have been improperly thwarted by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association. According to Hohler, the MIAA has refused to turn over incident reports in response to a public records request even though the secretary of state’s office has ruled that those records are, indeed, public. Hohler writes:
Details of the allegedmisconduct remain untold because the MIAA denied the Globe’s request for copies of the incident reports. The denial follows a ruling by the Secretary of State’s office in November that the MIAA, despite the organization’s objections, is a public entity subject to the state’s public records law.
MIAA executive director Bob Baldwin told Hohler that his organization has chosen to ignore the public’s right to know because officials don’t want to discourage schools from reporting incidents of harassment. Yet the lesson of past incidents is that reforms often don’t occur without exposure. For instance, it was only after Hohler reported that Danvers officials had failed to respond to a “toxic team culture” on the boys’ varsity hockey team that the attorney general’s office investigated and local leaders agreed to a series of reforms centered around policies and training. Hohler’s reporting was also followed by several departures, including the retirement of School Supt. Lisa Dana.
More than anything, Hohler’s report on the MIAA this week underscores the inadequacies of the Massachusetts public records law. There are few consequences for officials who refuse to comply with the law, even when they ignore a direct ruling to turn over public documents, as the MIAA is reportedly doing with Hohler and the Globe.
According to Hohler, the MIAA “has received 50 reports involving discrimination, harassment, or bullying — nearly one a week on average while school has been in session — since the organization began requiring its 380 member schools to file discriminatory incident reports starting with the winter season in late 2021.” The public deserves to know more about those reports.
The future of the New England Muzzle Awards
This is the time of year when I would be putting the finishing touches on the New England Muzzle Awards, an annual Fourth of July feature that highlights outrages against freedom of speech in the six New England states. From 1998 through 2012, the Muzzles were published in The Boston Phoenix. After the Phoenix closed in 2013, they were hosted at GBH News.
The one constant over all those years had been my friend Peter Kadzis’ role as editor at both the Phoenix and GBH. Following Peter’s well-earned retirement, I’ve decided that last year’s 25th anniversary edition will be the last. I’ll still track the kinds of stories that I used to highlight in the Muzzles, and the MIAA story would have been a natural. But rather than an annual round-up, I’m going to write them up in real time for Media Nation. You’ll notice a weak attempt at a logo near the top of this post. I’ll try to come up with something better.
I also want to express my appreciation to GBH News for hosting the Muzzles during the final 10 years of their existence, and to civil-liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate, my friend and occasional collaborator, for coming up with the idea all those years ago.
Daniel Ellsberg. Photo (cc) 2020 by Christopher Michel.
There are a couple of Boston angles to the Pentagon Papers, the government’s own secret history of the Vietnam War. The documents were leaked to the press in 1971 by Daniel Ellsberg, who died Friday at the age of 92.
Most people know that the papers were published first by The New York Times and then by The Washington Post. The story of the Post’s race to catch up with the Times is depicted in “The Post,” a 2017 film starring Tom Hanks. What is less well known is that The Boston Globe was the third paper to publish the documents. Former Globe editor Matt Storin wrote about the Globe’s role in a 2008 reminiscence (free link):
It was a significant milestone in the effort of the Globe’s editor, Tom Winship, to lift a formerly modest local paper to national prominence. Before that day in 1971, the Globe had won a single Pulitzer Prize. Since then, it has won 19 more. [And seven more since then.]
It was no accident that the Globe was one of the first three papers, either. “I definitely chose the Globe … because it had been great on the war,” Ellsberg told Storin. The tale Storin relates is pretty wild. Ellsberg, who had access to the documents as an analyst with the RAND Corp., had made a copy of them. The news of the documents’ existence was broken by Globe reporter Tom Oliphant after he interviewed Ellsberg, which in turn led Ellsberg to make still more copies and start disseminating them to the press before the FBI could come calling.
The whole story, including phone-booth document drops and the decision to hide the papers in the trunk of a car parked at the Globe, is well told by Storin.
The other Boston angle is that Beacon Press, a small independent book publisher that is part of the Unitarian Universalist Association, published the Pentagon Publishers after a number of other houses passed on the opportunity because of the legal risks involved. The Beacon Blog quotes Gayatni Patnaik, Beacon’s current director:
Daniel Ellsberg’s incredible fortitude stands as an example for all who believe in fighting for democracy and government accountability and who oppose war and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. We are incredibly proud to have taken the stand we did in releasing the Pentagon Papers. Today, over 50 years later, we are still guided by the principles that led to that brave decision.
Thanks to Adam Gaffin of Universal Hub for flagging that item. And by the way, Beacon is also the publisher of “What Works in Community News,” co-authored by Ellen Clegg and me, which is scheduled to be released in early 2024.
Federal authorities have charged three men in the vandalism and harassment case involving two journalists at New Hampshire Public Radio. In the press release below, issued Friday by the U.S. attorney’s office for Massachusetts, “Victim 1” is NHPR reporter Lauren Chooljian; “Victim 2” is her editor, Dan Barrick; and “Subject 1” is Eric Spofford, the founder New Hampshire’s largest network of addiction treatment centers.
Spofford has denied any involvement in or knowledge of the vandalism. He has filed a libel suit against Chooljian and NHPR, which drew the attention of The New York Times (free link) after a judge ordered that NHPR let him examine the transcripts of interviews so that he can determine if they are relevant to Spofford’s claim. The full press release is as follows:
BOSTON — Three New Hampshire men have been charged in connection with a conspiracy to harass and intimidate two New Hampshire journalists employed by New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR). The alleged harassment and intimidation of the victims included the vandalism — on five separate occasions — of the victims’ homes, as well as the vandalism of the home of one of the victim’s immediate family members with bricks, large rocks and red spray paint.
Tucker Cockerline, 32, of Salem, N.H., Michael Waselchuck, 35, of Seabrook, N.H. and Keenan Saniatan, 36, of Nashua, N.H. were each charged by criminal complaint with conspiring to commit stalking through interstate travel. Cockerline and Waselchuck were arrested this morning and, following an initial appearance in federal court in Boston this afternoon, were detained pending a hearing scheduled for June 20, 2023 at 2 p.m. Saniatan remains at large.
“The critical role that the press plays in our society goes back to the founding of our nation. Today’s charges should send a clear message that the Department of Justice will not tolerate harassment or intimidation of journalists. If you engage in this type of vicious and vindictive behavior you will be held accountable,” said Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy.
“Freedom of the press is a cornerstone of any healthy democracy and these three men are now accused of infringing on that freedom by conspiring to harass and intimidate two New Hampshire journalists who were simply doing their jobs,” said Christopher DiMenna, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division. “Everyone has a right to express their opinion, but taking it over the line and committing vandalism will not be tolerated.”
According to the charging document, after a year-long investigation, an NHPR journalist (Victim 1) published an article in March 2022 detailing allegations of sexual and other misconduct by a former New Hampshire businessperson, identified in the charging document as Subject 1. Another NHPR journalist (Victim 2) also contributed to the article, which appeared on NHPR’s website during and after March 2022. Thereafter, it is alleged that Cockerline, Waselchuck and Saniatan conspired with each other and with at least one other individual – allegedly identified as a close personal associate of Subject 1 — to retaliate against NHPR and Victims 1 and 2 by vandalizing the victims’ homes with bricks and large rocks, as well as spray-painting lewd and threatening language on the homes’ exteriors. It is alleged that the following acts of vandalisms occurred in April and May 2022:
At approximately 11:00 p.m. on April 24, 2022, a brick was thrown through a front exterior window of Victim’s 1’s former residence in Hanover, N.H. The word “C*NT” was spray-painted in large red letters on the front door;
On the evening of April 24, 2022 or during the early morning hours of April 25, 2022, the word “C*NT” was spray-painted in large red letters on the front door of Victim 2’s home in Concord, N.H. The exterior of the home was also damaged by a large rock, which appeared to have been thrown at the house;
Shortly before midnight on April 24, 2022 or during the early morning hours of April 25, 2022, a softball-sized rock was thrown through a front exterior window of Victim 1’s parents’ home in Hampstead, N.H. The word “C*NT” was spray-painted in large red letters on one of the garage doors;
At approximately 12:54 a.m. on May 21, 2022, Victim 1’s parents’ home in Hampstead was vandalized a second time. The word “C*NT” was spray-painted in large red letters on one of the garage doors. Although no windows were broken, a brick was discovered on the ground near the house’s foundation as if it had been thrown at the house; and
At approximately 5:54 a.m. on May 21, 2022, a brick was thrown through an exterior window of Victim 1’s house in Melrose, Mass. The phrase “JUST THE BEGINNING” was spray-painted in large red letters on the front of the home.
The charging documents allege that Cockerline, Saniatan and Waselchuck are responsible for committing all five of these vandalisms.
The charge of conspiracy to commit interstate stalking carries a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, a fine of up to $250,000 and restitution. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.
Acting U.S. Attorney Levy and FBI Acting SAC DiMenna made the announcement today. Valuable assistance was provided by the Concord, Hampstead and Hanover, New Hampshire Police Departments and the Melrose, Massachusetts Police Department. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Hampshire provided valuable assistance. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jason A. Casey and Torey B. Cummings of Levy’s Criminal Division are prosecuting the case.
The details contained in the charging documents are allegations. The defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Andy Thibault and Billie Holiday delivering The Winsted Citizen
On this week’s podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Andy Thibault, editor and publisher of The Winsted Citizen in Connecticut. The Citizen is a monthly print newspaper serving Litchfield County and the surrounding area. The paper’s digital presence is minimal, although it does publish The Winsted Citizen Blog. But that’s about to change, Thibault says. He’s going digital.
Starting a news organization is never easy, but the Citizen hit a brief speed bump. A speed bump named Ralph Nader, a native of Winsted who was initially the prime mover behind the paper but who got caught up in a dispute over how much financial support he was going to provide. According to Andy, he and Nader are now working together cooperatively and everything is moving ahead just fine.
Jack Walsh, a graduate student in Northeastern University’s School of Journalism, joins us to talk about his recent profile of the Chelsea Record, a 150-year-old weekly paper in the small city of Chelsea, Massachusetts. You can find Jack’s story on the What Works website and read his newsletter, Local News Matters, on Substack.
I’ve got a Quick Take on Gannett. Recently, many union journalists at Gannett staged a one-day strike over layoffs and cutbacks in benefits. Yet there are some interesting moves being made at the top of the company as well, with two news leaders being added to the senior executive team. Is the chain actually looking to bulk up its journalism?
Ellen discusses a recent poll about local news and accountability journalism. Surprisingly few Americans believe that local news media hold public officials accountable, according to a national poll commissioned by the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. This shows the devastating impact of the hollowing out of community news. And it calls into question whether local journalism is fulfilling one of its primary missions.
Not visible by car: Near Watertown Square along the Charle River bike paths. Photo (cc) 2022 by Dan Kennedy.
Has any urban area in Greater Boston been harmed more by our cultural addiction to cars than Watertown Square?
I come through the square semi-regularly by bike; sometimes I turn around in the square, sometimes I keep going to Waltham. Today I drove because we needed an oil change and our garage is there. Not only is the volume of cars and other motor vehicles nightmarish, but the traffic pattern is insane, and the lovely architecture you see in older homes and other buildings is all but obliterated.
Sure, there are plenty of other places where car culture has had a harmful effect. I live in Medford, and the constant crush of traffic is a real obstacle to efforts to revitalize Medford Square. But I can’t think of any place that’s worse than Watertown.
We need a different way of thinking about cars, both for the environment and for our sanity. I’d start with fleets of electric buses and widespread bans on private passenger vehicles.
Back in January, The Washington Post was struggling, and publisher Fred Ryan had some difficult decisions to make. What he chose was to eliminate 20 newsroom positions and leave another 30 openings unfilled. Oh, and there was this: He decided (or, at the very least, agreed) to phase out Launcher, a Post vertical devoted to covering video games, and lay off the site’s five staff members.
At a time when the Post was fighting for ways to differentiate itself from its larger rival, The New York Times, Launcher should have been considered a key part of that strategy. Gaming is the largest entertainment medium, larger than movies and music combined. And Launcher was doing well. As editor Mike Hume tweeted, the move was “sad, upsetting, and perhaps most of all, mindboggling,” adding that Launcher had drawn “tens of millions of users, the majority first-time readers of The Post and almost all of them under the age of 40.”
In the video game world, Launcher made a name for itself as a high-quality games media site with a focus on first-rate reporting, often taking the lead on difficult stories beyond the scope of the traditional enthusiast press. It stood out as one of the few examples of serious games reporting in a legacy newspaper, often landing major interviews and exclusives as a result.
It’s been obvious for quite some time that the Post needs a major reset. After years of growth, profits and what owner Jeff Bezos once called “swagger,” the paper has been stumbling since Donald Trump left the White House. Paid digital subscriptions are down from about 3 million to about 2.5 million, traffic to its website is on the wane, and the paper is losing money.
So it may have been met with a huge sigh of relief when Ryan announced Monday that he was stepping down as publisher and CEO. “I’m deeply grateful to Fred for his leadership and for the friendship that we’ve developed over the years,” Bezos wrote, according to an account of Ryan’s departure in The Wall Street Journal. Ryan told the staff in a note: “Together, we have accomplished one of the most extraordinary transformations in modern media history. We have evolved from a primarily local print newspaper to become a global digital publication.”
I didn’t interview Ryan when I was reporting on the Post’s revival in 2015 and ’16 for my book “The Return of the Moguls.” (I didn’t interview Bezos, either, but that’s a long story involving emails, snail mail and phone calls. Suffice to say he doesn’t give interviews to anyone, even the Post.) I spoke with then-executive editor Marty Baron and then-chief technologist Shailesh Prakash, who were leading the Post’s revival. I made a few attempts to connect with Ryan, but it didn’t happen. In any case, Baron and Prakash were the ones who were doing the transformational work.
So I was fascinated with Charlotte Klein’s account of the Post’s decline in Vanity Fair earlier this year. Bezos had paid a rare visit to the Post, and everyone was wondering what it all meant. At the time, it seemed like Ryan was feeling empowered with legends like Baron and Prakash having moved on. There was even talk that Baron’s replacement, Sally Buzbee, was musing with her inner circle that she might leave if Ryan didn’t stay in his lane. But in reporting on Ryan’s departure Monday, Klein writes that Buzbee had smoothed things over in recent months even as Bezos has been a more visible presence.
“Bezos, I’m told, has brought refreshing candor to the discussions, in which he’s asked about things like the Post’s paywall strategy and, notably, plan for growing subscriptions,” Klein writes. “At times, he sharply questioned Ryan, one of the sources said.”
For now, the Post will be led by an interim CEO, Patty Stonesifer, former CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The way forward is not clear at all. Being just like the Times, only smaller and not as good, is not a business strategy. The Post is still a great newspaper, rivaled only by the Times and The Wall Street Journal. But it needs to find its own identify, as the Journal has with an emphasis on business news and a right-wing editorial page. (I’m not suggesting that the Post emulate the Journal’s opinion section; the Post’s is bad enough already.)
More than anything, the Post needs to identify coverage areas that the Times has ignored and doesn’t seem to be interested in. Like, you know, video games. Did I mention that it’s the largest entertainment medium in the country, and that Launcher was bringing in tens of millions of young readers before the Post decided to shut it down? Yes. Yes, I did.
The harassment endured by Lauren Chooljian, a reporter for New Hampshire Public Radio, is frightening and horrifying. David Enrich of The New York Times reported last week (free link) that Chooljian, her parents and her editor have been subjected to vandalism and threats after she reported on sexual misconduct allegations against Eric Spofford, who founded the state’s largest network of addiction treatment centers.
Spofford denies having anything to do with the vandalism. But there’s an interesting wrinkle to the case that I want to discuss, and that’s Spofford’s libel suit against Chooljian and NHPR. Because of Spofford’s prominence, he has been designated as a public figure, which means that he must show actual malice (as well as falsity and defamation) in order to win his suit. Actual malice, as you probably know, requires that the plaintiff prove the defendant published the offending material despite knowing or strongly suspecting it was false.
NHPR has been ordered by Judge Daniel St. Hilaire to turn over transcripts of interviews, including with anonymous sources. “Legal experts,” Enrich wrote, “called the ruling unusual and alarming, saying such decisions could make it harder for journalists to investigate potential wrongdoing by public figures.” And Enrich quoted one of those experts, Chad Bowman, as saying it was “‘deeply troubling’ for a judge to force journalists to hand over unpublished materials when the plaintiff hadn’t yet made a viable legal claim.”
The last part of that statement is the key: Spofford has not yet presented the sort of evidence that would suggest he could win if allowed to proceed. St. Hilaire seems to be putting the cart before the horse. But if Spofford does have a viable case, then he’s entitled to gather the evidence he needs to pursue it. Remember, he needs to prove actual malice. That means it’s essential that he be allowed to probe the inner workings of Chooljian’s and NHPR’s reporting and editing processes to see whether they knew what they were broadcasting was false or if they harbored any serious doubts about it.
At one time libel had been regarded as what you might call a no-fault tort. That is, if you could show that you had been defamed with falsehoods, then you would win your case, regardless of the news organization’s motivation. In the 1974 case of Gertz v. Robert Welch, however, the Supreme Court ruled that even private individuals would have to prove negligence. With at least two members of the current Supreme Court, Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, having suggested they’d like to revisit libel law, it’s worth thinking about whether negligence might be a better standard than actual malice, even for public officials and public figures.
The problem with actual malice has always been that though it makes it extremely difficult for a plaintiff to win a libel suit against the news media, it also gives the plaintiff entree into a news outlet’s private communications. Consider that, in 2005, The Boston Globe lost a libel suit brought by a doctor in the case of Betsy Lehman, a Globe reporter who died after receiving a massive overdose of a chemotherapy drug. In that case, the judge ruled that Dr. Lois Ayash won what turned out to be a $2 million judgment by default after the Globe refused to turn over its confidential sources, as the judge had ordered.
Ayash was entitled to that information, but there was no way the Globe was going to betray its confidential sources. If a negligence standard had been in effect rather than actual malice, then the jury could have determined whether the Globe had acted negligently without probing into its reporting processes.
So, too, with the NHPR case. The problem here, again, is that it’s not clear whether Chooljian reported anything that was false. Truth is almost always considered an absolute defense in a libel case, which is why Judge St. Hilaire seems to be acting prematurely. Nevertheless, the case is a good illustration of why actual malice — defined in the landmark Times v. Sullivan case in 1964 — may have been a mistake, and why negligence may be a more workable standard.
As we wait to see how Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion against the Russian government turns out, it’s worth remembering that Walter Lippmann conceived of objectivity as a response to the Western press’ — and especially The New York Times’ — being guided by wishful thinking in its coverage of the Russian Revolution. And here we are again.
