Big Fat Liar

Dale Rominger is a big fat liarThe next station stop on our summer road trip through the First Amendment:  freedom of the press.  We’ve already visited free speech and free expression of religion.  We’re half way home! (Coming up:  free assembly, and the right to petition for grievances.)  Actually, we’ve barely scratched the surface of these complex rights.  But at least I’m learning something. 

And I get to say outrageous things like:

Dale Rominger is a big fat liar. 

Thank you, First Amendment to the US Constitution, for protecting my right to make that statement in this blog.  The US Ninth Circuit Court recently ruled that bloggers are journalists.  We have all the same free press protections as institutional media like newspapers and TV news.

So I can make any statement I want about Dale in this column, without fear that he will sue me for defamation of character. 

The Revolutionary War was won as much by the colonial newspapers brazenly decrying taxation without representation as it was at the battles of Lexington and Concord.  James Madison knew a free press was essential for a free people as a check against government power.  Since then our courts have honed, limited and expanded what a free press can and can’t do.  For example, defamation of character.   The courts have ruled that a reporter can’t write something about someone that they know is false; it is defamation when they recklessly disregard the truth.

George III was a Big Fat TaxmanOur founding journalists were telling the truth about George III.  They were not defaming him.

And I am telling the truth about Dale.  He has told me that 4000 people read this website every week.  That just can’t be the case.  Dale is a big fat liar.  I know that to be true.

And as a respected journalist blogger, the courts have given me even more protection.  I don’t have to reveal the names of my sources.  Like those shady people who met me in a parking garage and told me the real numbers of our readers here at the Back Road Café.

There’s more, thanks to the courts.  I can say what I want about Dale, because he is not just a private citizen.  He’s an important public figure. The courts have ruled that the press can be freer in what they say about public figures, who have sacrificed some privacy to the gods of fame.  Moreover, if the issue in question is a matter of serious public concern, the courts have said, it is all the more crucial that the press be free to report on these matter unfettered.  Only the most serious matters of national security can justify muzzling the press.  While Dale’s veracity might not be a serious national security threat, the trust of our 4000 weekly readers certainly constitute a serious public concern.

So: hear ye, hear ye…..

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That was my attempt at a humorous recapitulation of some of the issues and limits of freedom of the press, as presented by a recent case in the Ninth District Federal Appeals Court in San Francisco, one of the courts just below the Supreme Court.

Blogger Crystal Cox wrote in her on line blog that Obsidian Finance Company was a big fat liar.  Well, she wrote that they were defrauding their customers.  And lying about it.  (The name of her blog might have given it away: <obsidianfinancesucks.com>.

The company sued her for defamation of character, arguing that the rules protecting journalists did not protect her as a self-described investigative blogger and whistler blower.    She countered that she was a journalist, and she said that Obsidian’s CEO was a public figure because he had been named by the courts as a trustee for the clients they were ripping off, and that it was a matter of public concern. 

The judges in her home state of Oregon ruled against her, saying she was not a journalist.

She and a law professor from the University of California at Los Angeles took the case to the next higher court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

That court overturned much of the Oregon ruling and said, in effect, “No, Crystal Cox is a journalist.  There is no way to separate ‘professional’ and ‘amateur’ journalists, especially in the age of blogs and social media.  And Cox is right, this was a matter of public concern.  But you were right, Oregon judges, the trustee was not a public figure.  So go back and have another trial, but refer to previous rulings on what journalists can and can’t do.  Look at the facts again and see whether she misrepresented them willfully.  You might, or might not, come to a different conclusion.”

A big learning for me this summer in this crash course in constitutional law is that these cases are messy and complex.  The issues go far beyond the headlines and there are often no simple winners and losers.

Dale Rominger Contemplates Future ActionLike this case: it turns out that Crystal Cox may very well actually be a big fat liar.  She is, according to some websites, not just a blogger.  She also hires herself out to do on line reputation cleanup.   If people say mean or false things about you on line, she will, for a fee, clean it up and right that wrong.  The problem is, after she wrote those nasty things about the Obsidian executives, she then turned around and offered them her “protection” services.  Some say she extorted them, threatening to continue her “investigations” unless they signed up for her services.  Cox’s critics compare her to the stereotypical Mafia goons who firebomb your store and then demand protection money so they won’t do it again.  They say real journalists can’t have conflict of interest or benefit from their stories.

So she’s not exactly Daniel Ellsburg, the usual hero of US freedom of the press stories.  Because he gave the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and they published them, and the Supreme Court upheld their actions against the objections of the President, we know about Watergate and Nixon had to resign.

But Courtney Cox may be less principled.  I don’t know that for a fact.   I’m just reporting what I’ve read.  Be careful what you read and believe in the “press.”  Including this column.

The press is messy.  So is justice.  Some characters in court, like Cox, may be messy. 

But not Dale.  He has never lied to me.  I just made that up to get you to read this piece.  I am a desperate blogger.  Forgive me, Dale.  Please don’t sue.

Copyright © 2014 Deborah Streeter