Law: Clinton Can Easily Sue ABC Disney For Libel, FCC can shut down ABC

[Dems Will Win]

Clinton Can Easily Sue ABC Disney For Libel, FCC can shut down ABC

If a court finds that Clinton's life and good name has been maliciously and falsely defamed and injured, he can easily win a libel suit, even under American laws. At that point, ABC, under political pressure from the new Democratic Congress, could have its license revoked by the FCC, even though the Fairness Doctrine was repealed in 1987.

From a conservative blog: (found googling)

Broadcasters have to obtain a license from the Federal Communications Commission. Stations receive licenses only when the FCC judges it to be "in the public interest, convenience, or necessity." Licenses are granted for a limited period, and the FCC may choose not to renew. The FCC has never defined what the "public interest" means. In the past, it preferred a case-by-case approach, which has been called "regulation by raised eyebrow."

During most of its history, the FCC consistently favored broadcasters who shared the views of government officials, and disfavored broadcasters who did not.

The first instance of serious and pervasive political censorship was initiated by Franklin Roosevelt's FCC in the 1930s. The Yankee Radio network in New England frequently editorialized against Roosevelt. The FCC asked Yankee to provide details about its programming. Sensing the drift, Yankee immediately stopped broadcasting editorials in 1938. In order to drive its point home, the FCC found Yankee deficient at license renewal time. It announced,


"Radio can serve as an instrument of democracy only when devoted to the communication of information and exchange of ideas fairly and objectively presented.... It cannot be devoted to the support of principles he happens to regard most favorably...."

In 1949, the FCC announced its Fairness Doctrine. Broadcasters were required "to provide coverage of vitally important controversial issues...and...a reasonable opportunity for the presentation of contrasting viewpoints on such issues." In practice, the Fairness Doctrine only worked in one direction: against conservatives.

During the Republican Eisenhower years, the FCC paid little attention to broadcasting content, and a number of conservative radio stations emerged. After John Kennedy was elected in 1960, his administration went on the offensive against them. Kennedy's Assistant Secretary of Commerce, Bill Ruder, later admitted, "Our massive strategy was to use the Fairness Doctrine to challenge and harass right-wing broadcasters and hope that the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue."

This strategy was highly successful. Hundreds of radio stations cancelled conservative shows that they had been broadcasting. The FCC revoked the license of one radio station, WXUR of Media, Pennsylvania, a tiny conservative Christian broadcaster. When WXUR appealed to the courts, one dissenting judge noted "that the public has lost access to information and ideas...as a result of this doctrinal sledge-hammer ." The Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal. It saw no free speech violation in the government shutdown of a radio station for broadcasting conservative ideas.

The government also revoked the license of a television station in Jackson, Mississippi. WLTB was unapologetically and openly opposed to federal civil rights policies at the time, and would introduce NBC's news reports with this warning: "What you are about to see is an example of biased, managed, Northern news. Be sure to stay tuned at 7:25 to hear your local newscast." The D.C. Circuit Court ordered the FCC to revoke WLTB's license.

"After nearly five decades of operation, the broadcast industry does not seem to have grasped the simple fact that a broadcast license is a public trust subject to termination for breach of duty." Again, the Supreme Court refused to hear the station's appeal.

And also this:
Sinclair, one of the largest independent owners of television stations, found itself the latest media company in controversy’s glare when its plans to air an anti-John Kerry documentary drew fierce opposition from Democrats in Washington, advertisers and, in turn, shareholders.

Shares of the Hunt Valley company fell nearly 17 percent, then mostly recovered after it announced it would not air all of the documentary critical of Kerry’s actions some 30 years ago after he returned from combat in Vietnam.

Historically, the Federal Communications Commission has revoked or denied renewal of broadcast licenses for negligence, but not for arguments over political speech that are protected by the First Amendment — making it unlikely Sinclair would lose any of its licenses. But Sinclair could be affected in other ways. Media analysts said the flap could lead regulators to re-examine rules that govern how many stations a company can own in one market and that deal with the political content of newscasts.

And depending on the outcome of next week’s election, and its effect on the control of the FCC, which regulates the public airwaves, Sinclair might not get the rubber stamp that television outlets routinely receive when renewing broadcast licenses.
Any viewer theoretically can challenge Sinclair’s licenses, which come up for renewal every eight years at various times, state by state.

The FCC has revoked licenses several times for reasons other than content complaints. In 1988, RKO agreed to sell KHJ-TV Channel 9 in Los Angeles and 13 other television and radio stations to Walt Disney Co. in a $324 million settlement after the FCC revoked RKO’s licenses for filing false financial statements, dishonesty with advertisers and improper campaign contributions.

In 1989, radio station owner Henry Serafin lost WBUZ, a Fredonia, N.Y., AM radio station, after local residents complained that he discriminated in hiring and ran contests without awarding prizes.

http://www.freepress.net/news/5083

[aquart]

1. Clinton is a public figure. Are the laws different for him?

[NMDemDist2]

2. read this great post in the thread about Clinton's lawyer's letter

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2070566&mesg_id=2072950

[Monk06]

9. Goldwater succeeded in a libel suit against the NYT. Clinton has a big

fat precedent and could seek immediate injunctive
relief

[aquart]

10. Goldwater as a precedent? Oh, sweet.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. It's tougher for a public figure to sue successfully for defamation,

but not impossible. According to the New York Times v. Sullivan case, a public figure has to show not only that the allegedly defamatory statement was false, but that the media entity that published it did so with "actual malice," meaning either with the knowledge that the statement was false, or in reckless disregard for the truth.

In this situation, since Clinton and Albright and Berger and a bunch of other people have insisted that the movie has a lot of fake stuff in it, if ABC decides to go ahead and show it anyhow, Clinton et al. could make a pretty strong argument that "actual malice" has been established.

[Toots]

13. Not anymore he isn't

The Laws do apply to him and he can sue for Libel and Slander. I seriously doubt he would as he isn't running for office anytime soon but he could..

[Sydnie]

3. From Talk Left

Law Professor and blogger Michael Froomkin at Discourse. Net writes:

it seems to me that one aspect of ABC/Disney's position has been missed: if the public descriptions of the show are accurate, then the people who made it and those who plan to show it have some serious libel exposure.

Generally in the United States you can't libel a public figure. Plus, libel claims based on fiction are obviously much harder than claims based on assertions in supposed non-fiction. But neither of these bars is insurmountable. And on the facts as reported, they could be surmounted surprisingly easily.

As one New York court put it not so long ago, a claim of "libel by fiction" requires that "the description of the fictional character must be so closely akin to the real person claiming to be defamed that a reader of the book, knowing the real person, would have no difficulty linking the two." The novel Primary Colors didn't meet that test as it didn't use real names, nor were the physical description of any character like the plaintiff in that case. But the 9/11 show differs from Primary Colors in a very basic way: It uses actors portraying real people with their actual names involved in activities that are a blend of real things they did and of the partisan imagination. I suspect it wouldn't be hard to get a court to see the difference from Primary Colors-like facts. Furthermore, even if ABC were to run a big disclaimer with the episode, that wouldn't necessarily suffice.

It's even harder to make out a case of libel when the victim is a public figure. Basically, to win you have to show that the author of the libelous work demonstrated a "reckless disregard for the truth." Given the public nature of the warnings that various scenes are false, if in fact they are false then I think this part of the case should be pretty easy.

If I were at ABC or Disney I'd be having a serious talk with my lawyers right about now.

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/015678.html

[AndyTiedye]

8. Fiction That They Are Touting to Schools as Educational Material

[0rganism]

5. "under political pressure from the new Democratic Congress"

aye, there's the rub

That circumstance is the very thing that so much of what we'll get from the corporate media between now and November is professionally designed to prevent.

ABC's 9/11 "docudrama" is essentially a $40-million infomercial for the GOP. It will probably only tilt the scales a one or two points in their favor, but so will the next one, and the next one, and the one after that, and so on. This is just a part of the 2006 campaign, make no mistake.

Propaganda works. In 2004, the GOP turned a multiply-decorated veteran into a traitorous wimp, and an incompetent deserter into the paragon of justice and protector of the American Way. It's expensive to do correctly, but it works like a charm.

[flyarm]

6. go get them President William Jefferson Clinton! crush them! n/t

[KT2000]

7. stations have to keep letters, right?

when they are up for renewal they have announcements that people can visit their offices and review letters in their files.
Any letters we write to the local stations will become public record.
After we receive a reply, we should send another letter that includes their reply to make sure that is on the record accurately as well.

[renate]

11. hey, good point!

Who knows whether the letters make any difference if they're just letters of complaint, but maybe if enough letters mentioned the fact that ABC is 100% bankrolling a partisan movie disguised as a documentary, this could cause some headaches by the time the Democrats are back in power and are in charge of the FCC and of renewing licenses.

[Dems Will Win]

12. kick

[Dems Will Win]

14. kick