Howard Bashman reports on an LA Times editorial on a story originating in my back yard.
The case began a decade ago. A staffer for the Daily Local News in West Chester, Pa., reported on a stormy City Council meeting in nearby Parkesburg that disintegrated into name-calling outside the council chambers. The issue isn't whether Councilman William T. Glenn Sr. called the mayor and another city councilman "liars," "queers" and "child molesters" or whether the newspaper's reporter accurately reported Glenn's raw charges.
The targets of the vitriol sued for damages by claiming that because Glenn's charges were false, the newspaper's story repeating them constituted defamation. Last October, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed, reinstating a libel lawsuit against the newspaper reporter, his editor and the publishing company.
This is nuts. And for some unexplained reason, the U.S. Supreme Court last week summarily refused to review the Pa. Supreme Court's decision. At first glance, this seems to have even more ominous and sweeping implications than regulating blogs. More on this later, probably.
