Jury Finds Boston Herald Libeled Judge

[paineinthearse]

This couldn't have happened to a more deserving neocon rag!!!!

For background events, see posts in the Massachusetts forum.

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http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=513030

Jury Finds Boston Herald Libeled Judge

Jury Finds Boston Herald and Reporter Libeled Judge, Newspaper Must Pay $2.1 Million

By JAY LINDSAY
The Associated Press

Feb. 18, 2005 - The Boston Herald was ordered Friday to pay $2.1 million for libeling a Superior Court judge in articles that portrayed him as lenient toward defendants and quoted him making insensitive comments about a 14-year-old rape victim.

In a case closely watched by the media and legal communities, a jury deliberated for more than 20 hours over five days before finding that the newspaper and reporter David Wedge were guilty of libeling Superior Court Judge Ernest B. Murphy.

Murphy claimed Wedge misquoted him as telling lawyers involved in the case about the teenage rape victim: "Tell her to get over it."

[beyurslf]

1. Libel ispretty hard to prove.... must have had a strong case

[joeybee12]

2. I read a lot about this--it was a very strong case...the reporter went

on all sorts of talk shows to repeat his lies.

Burn him at the stake, I say!

[BlueManDude]

4. Especially for a public figure

they f-ed this judge over big time so they could get their ideological point of view across (judges soft on crime). i followed some of this trial and they were just flat out negligent in the way they went to press with crap that was not true. the "reporter" was a little weasel hack. i hope this is the death knell for the herald. they were struggling anyway.

[BlueManDude]

3. I love it, this guy Wedge is a hack and a disgrace to journalism

fuck the Herald.

[Massachusetts]

5. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

:headbang:

[struggle4progress]

7. Absolutely!

[Erika]

6. L Dotters don't know the Herald is a conservative rag

and are posting and proclaiming the award as a defeat to liberals.

They actually allow these people to vote?

[Say_What]

8. Herald was a Rupert Murdoch paper until the 1990s when Pat Purcell

bought it. Purcell had been Murdoch's fair haired boy at the NY Daily News--one of the youngest managers they had. During Murdoch's ownership anyway, it was always a RW rag. Prior to that it had been a Hearst paper. The Herald goes back a long way in Boston's history, but Murdoch changed it from a broad sheet to a tabloid and modeled it after his London publications--sensationalism and lies, basically.