Also there was a book on Columbine that came out 10 years after the event. And the story there was that virtually all the initial reporting had it wrong. Particularly with regards to "trench coat mafia" stuff.
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Also there was a book on Columbine that came out 10 years after the event. And the story there was that virtually all the initial reporting had it wrong. Particularly with regards to "trench coat mafia" stuff.
[QUOTE=daily]:facepalm
To prove the media libeled him it must be proven they set out to do it on purpose or they did it in the face of other contrary facts related to the story.
In this case the media reported exactly what they were told by the police department. that's what you seem to have a hard time grasping here. They didn't fabricate the story and they didn't make assumptions based on rumors or innuendo they reported the news as it was told to them by a spokesman for the police. When the police rectified their error the media retracted the original name and ran the new one.
They did nothing but report the news as it was given to them by the Police.
Until you can wrap you head around that you're just talking out your ass[/QUOTE]
You're straight up wrong man. Ripthekik has it correct.
[QUOTE]How to prove libel
There are several ways a person must go about proving that libel has taken place. For example, in the United States, first, the person must prove that the statement was false. Second, the person must prove that the statement caused harm. Third, the person must prove that the statement was made without adequate research into the truthfulness of the statement. [B]These steps are for an ordinary citizen[/B]. For a celebrity or a public official, the person must prove the first three steps and that the statement was made with the intent to do harm or with reckless disregard for the truth.[citation needed] Usually specifically referred to as "proving malice".[13][/QUOTE]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation[/url]
[QUOTE=KevinNYC]A. The damage he suffered only lasted for a couple of hours.[/QUOTE]
We live in a society with high speed internet and people often use the internet as part of their living. A couple of hours is [B]WAYYY[/B] more than enough time to make this kid famous. It's called the [B]WORLD[/B] wide web for a reason.
[QUOTE]B. If the media were saying "According to police, the suspect is......" then that is an absolutely factual statement and no media company would lose that case... The question may become can he sue the police? Still probably not a winnable case since if the killer stole his ID, the cops had a justifiable reason to believe it was him.[/QUOTE]
The media can say whatever they want. When your job is to report accurate information, you can't just take any information given to you at face value.
[QUOTE]This does not at all seem to be a case of jumping the gun or acting out of malice. Yes, they communicated false information but they had valid reasons for saying what they said.[/QUOTE]
Back to slander as I mentioned in my last post. There doesn't have to be any malice in order to slander someone.
[QUOTE]C. And this point is the biggest. How much has reputation suffered from being known as a heinous killer of children for a few hours, compared to being known as the brother a heinous killer of children? The cops and the media didn't cause this, his brother did, even if there was confusion about the facts in the beginning.[/QUOTE]
You do realize pretty much anyone can go online and read about him in a second, right? Even if it was up for only an hour, that's way more than enough time for millions to read and assume he was the killer. There's also nutjobs who may have planned to get revenge for the murders. With modern technology, it only takes seconds to spread a rumor and ruin someone's life.
[QUOTE]It was his brother who turned his life upside down, regardless of what the cops or the media did. It's not like without the early erroneous reports, this guy is sitting pretty. His family has still been torn apart.[/QUOTE]
And his brother is dead. No doubt the family has been torn apart, but the brother is innocent.
[QUOTE]I don't see him having any winnable case.[/QUOTE]
He may not win umpteen million, but he can win a piece of change.
[QUOTE=daily]:facepalm
To prove the media libeled him it must be proven they set out to do it on purpose or they did it in the face of other contrary facts related to the story.
In this case the media reported exactly what they were told by the police department. that's what you seem to have a hard time grasping here. They didn't fabricate the story and they didn't make assumptions based on rumors or innuendo they reported the news as it was told to them by a spokesman for the police. When the police rectified their error the media retracted the original name and ran the new one.
They did nothing but report the news as it was given to them by the Police.
Until you can wrap you head around that you're just talking out your ass[/QUOTE]
:facepalm :facepalm
All you need to do is prove in court that the defendant said or wrote the statements against you; the statements are not true; the statements caused harm to you, by damaging your reputation; other people heard or read the statements made against you.
You are asking for compensation here for damage, not that they did a crime. :facepalm
Anyways, I'm not even going to bother. No one's paying me for this.
[QUOTE=bmulls]You're straight up wrong man. Ripthekik has it correct.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation[/url][/QUOTE]You're missing the point also
The media reported what was told to them by the police. end of story
You cannot sue the media for relaying information from a public official in an effort to inform the public. It's not the media fault, it's the police departments fault.
if the police said it's Homer Simpson and they report it's Ryan Lanza then that's different story, BUT in this case the police told the media and not just one outlet but several that the shooters name was Ryan Lanza.
[QUOTE=daily]You're missing the point also
The media reported what was told to them by the police. end of story
You cannot sue the media for relaying information from a public official in an effort to inform the public. It's not the media fault, it's the police departments fault.
if the police said it's Homer Simpson and they report it's Ryan Lanza then that's different story, BUT in this case the police told the media and not just one outlet but several that the shooters name was Ryan Lanza.[/QUOTE]
The police didn't officially report that, CNN asked some cop at the scene who spilled the beans. The police chief's official statement did not name a suspect. This distinction is important.
Not sure why they handcuffed him ... if I was the brother I would be pissed.
[QUOTE=bmulls]The police didn't officially report that, CNN asked some cop at the scene who spilled the beans. The police chief's official statement did not name a suspect. This distinction is important.[/QUOTE]
I'm not a lawyer but this detail seems pretty significant as to whether there is a case or not.
[QUOTE=D.J.]He most certainly has a case. Even if he wasn't intentionally slandered, it's still considered slander because by putting his picture online and on TV, you're hurting his reputation and can cause him problems down the road. Slander doesn't have to have intent behind it. When your working for a media outlet and your job is to report information, it is your duty to make sure the information is accurate before you make it public. One piece of inaccurate information can ruin a person's life. When people thought he was the killer, someone could have attempted to harm him. It's still consider slander and it affected his reputation and his safety.[/QUOTE]
What problem will this cause him down the road?
It's not like CNN has been reporting this for 7 weeks that he was the guy behind the mass murder and than all of a sudden say "my bad, it was his brother who did it."
It was probably reported for no more than 30 minutes (as this even was basically still goin on as they try to get the details, ect.)
I don't see this goin anywhere.
Here's an article from a press watchdog on the Ryan Lizza angle. They don't mention the possibility of a lawsuit.
[url]http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/media-lab/social-media/198262/news-orgs-circulate-facebook-profile-of-the-wrong-ryan-lanza/[/url]
He will sue and he will never even need to enter a courtroom. He'll get a fair but not exorbitant settlement.
He can claim a bunch of things , but that's not really the point. Media outlets don't want to go through another circus that will isolate and highlight their incompetence and lack of credibility when those are the institutions they're based on.
So who was the person they claimed he killed in an apartment in Jersey? Or was that all just mis-information?
[QUOTE=L.Kizzle]What problem will this cause him down the road?[/QUOTE]
You don't know. Could have caused a nut job to kill him thinking he committed the crime. Future employment. You don't know.
[QUOTE]It's not like CNN has been reporting this for 7 weeks that he was the guy behind the mass murder and than all of a sudden say "my bad, it was his brother who did it."[/QUOTE]
We live in an age of computers and high speed Internet. It only takes seconds to spread a nasty rumor or false information and ruin a person's life.
[QUOTE]It was probably reported for no more than 30 minutes (as this even was basically still goin on as they try to get the details, ect.)[/QUOTE]
That's way more than enough time.
[QUOTE=KevinNYC]Are there any lawyers on this board.
[/QUOTE]
My father is a Superior Court Judge. I'll ask him tonight when I meet up for dinner
There's apparently a crap load of hate pages set up for him already and he received threats. Even a blogger who passed on private posts of his stating he wasn't the killer was receiving threads from people.
the fact that we, a basketball forum, have a topic dedicated to him, and that probably every big time forum will have a topic on him too, tells you enough about the situation.
For the guys that said it's different because it was pulled off in a few hours and not days, well guess what, the damage is already done!
Want to put a celebrity's nude photos online and take it off in 5 minutes? Think it's not problem because you pulled it off so fast? Tell that to the judge, because it'll be all over the world in hours, and the damage is unrecoverable.
Dude should sue for compensation, and an injunction for the news to clear his name.