Courts and contracts demand truth over rhetoric

I think some are making more of this than it warrants but it is interesting. From Media Lawyer Explains Why CNN Settlement in Libel Case Is a Big Deal by Jarrett Stepman.

Context:

Will media outlets learn the right lessons after CNN settled in a lawsuit with Nick Sandmann, the MAGA-hat wearing teen who became the center of a widely botched, viral story?

“No. They don’t learn.”

That was the answer from Charles Glasser, a lawyer who teaches media ethics and law at New York University and the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York, in an interview with The Daily Signal.

Sandmann became the center of a media storm nearly one year ago after a viral video emerged of him wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat and standing in front of a Native American man at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

A deluge of media outlets portrayed Sandmann as the aggressor and a racist before more facts emerged to disprove that narrative.

“I keep wishing and I keep hoping that they will learn their lesson, that being responsible instead of being first wins the day,” Glasser said.

It was a shameful incident of mega-media corporations trying to destroy a kids life, all being incidental to their campaign to prove Trump and Americans are racist oppressors. They got the story exactly backwards, falsely accused and doxed a young man and never apologized or made restitution. Now, under threat of legal suits, they are beginning to settle.

Glasser is pointing out a subtle point.

What is particularly interesting and mostly overlooked about the CNN case, Glasser said, is the legal arguments it was using to avoid legal repercussions.

“[CNN] initially filed a motion to dismiss, making the argument that calling somebody a ‘racist’ is not a provable fact and therefore does not rise to the level of libel,” Glasser said. “I think it’s extremely telling—it really got overlooked—that CNN argued that there can’t be a factual basis for calling somebody a racist.”

Glasser cited CNN’s argument in a short article on Instapundit. CNN argued:

Courts treat statements characterizing people as “racist” as nonactionable opinion because they cannot be proved true or false. … Sandmann cannot as a matter of law base a defamation claim on this statement as it offers an expression of opinion so subjective as to be unprovable.

The problem with this line of argument, Glasser said, is that CNN analysts frequently call President Donald Trump and others racist as a statement of fact.

“It’s fascinating that there is a news organization that will look the [audience] right in the eye and say, ‘We report facts and the fact is, Trump is a racist,’” Glasser said. “To go into court and say that it’s not a possible fact, it can’t be a fact, that’s a disconnect that really deserves, from a societal standpoint, some thought and discussion.”

Though CNN is in the news business, and frequently labels Trump a racist, in court it argues that calling someone racist is not fact-based, but an opinion, Glasser said.

“So you’ve got this political, societal section that says that being a racist is bad … and at the same time they go into court and say it’s not provably true, calling somebody a racist,” Glasser said. “I find that stunning.”

Well, yes. Reality has a way of forcing your actions towards its ends. Gods of the Copybook Headings and all that.

The charge of racism is both the emptiest and most potent accusations made by the postmodernist left. Good moral people hate to think of themselves as bad and shy away from the accusation. They will do almost anything to avoid it, even when there is no basis for the accusation. It is a very powerful rhetorical tool.

But thinking about the substance of the accusation almost immediately strips it bare. There is almost never any there there. It is substantively bankrupt.

And that is what CNN is acknowledging. Their claim, when faced with real consequences to their rhetoric is that it is empty ad hominem name-calling. It is an opinion without substance. Which is, as Glasser notes, a pretty striking admission from a news network who traffics substantially in claims of racism (an unprovable opinion as they now acknowledge) and yet simultaneously holds themselves out as purveyors of fact.

It is worth noting but it also feels kind of like a petty gotcha point as well.

But it is worth noting when these subtle points are conceded.

A few years ago, someone pointed out something similar regarding the financing of cities. Major cities tend to be hotbeds for progressive policies including the religious belief in AGW, AKA global warming. A central, though scientifically null claim of AGW is the near term rise in sea levels and increase in storm power. Given that the great majority of cities are shorefront or riverfront and that all of them are subject to stormy weather, that should theoretically be concerning to them.

What this person was pointing out is that every time cities issue bonds, especially infrastructure bonds, they have to identify related risks relevant to the city's capacity to repay. These bonds are usually long duration, multiple decades. Nothing unusual about that.

The political leaders in these cities are rhetorically extremely concerned about the near term, now often identified as twelve years, impact of AGW. We have twelve years to stop the oceans from rising and storms taking down our cities.

But when they sign-off on the risks when issuing thirty-year municipal bonds, they never identify climate change as a risk.

Their rhetoric says one thing. Their actions tell a different story.

When dealing with the truth demanded by law and contract, progressives testify that there is no factual racism and there are no risks associated with climate change.

Seems at least of passing interest but it gets little attention.