
We Were Sued by a Billionaire Political Donor. We Won. Here's What Happened - coloneltcb
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2015/10/mother-jones-vandersloot-melaleuca-lawsuit
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0898
They won, but in the final section the judge had this to say:

“This decision grants summary judgment in favor of the Mother Jones
Defendants. Even so, the Court finds Mother Jones’ reporting styles, and
indeed the general trend in political journalism, troubling. The Court record
and, in particular, [an email from Mother Jones reporter Stephanie Mencimer],
illustrates Mother Jones’ determination to present a biased article by
offering a skewed view of the Plaintiffs.…”

“Mother Jones describes its articles as ‘smart, fearless journalism,’ ‘ahead
of the curve’ and ‘about reporting.’ Contrary to its perception of itself,
this case illustrates the non-objective bias of Mother Jones and its approach
in seeking out only the negative to support its position; resorting to
sophomoric bullying and name-calling to lead the reader to adopt its
particular agenda.”

“The Founders of this country expected that democracy would thrive only if the
press was not hindered in its reporting upon the actions of government and the
governors, James Madison, in 1825, wrote: ‘The diffusion of knowledge is the
only guardian of true liberty.’”

“But the journalistic model revealed to the Court in the record of this
lawsuit is anything but a ‘guardian of true liberty.’ Instead, it is little
more than mud-slinging, advertised as journalistic fearlessness, which offers
very little in the way of a complete or balanced picture for its readers.
Instead of being a leader in educating the people about civil discourse in an
era of increased political polarization, the press in general, and Mother
Jones in particular, leads the way in demonizing, rather than fairly
discussing, those whose points of view differ from its own.”

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FireBeyond
So odd, because in the end, you could add the following:

"However, every single one of the Plaintiff's claims (that MJ was defamatory,
libelous, derogatory or otherwise) is found to be without merit."

So, the accusation is that there is mud to be slung, and that the mud slung
was accurate, just not balanced - and it's only MJ that might have an issue
with portraying themselves as balanced, which, if problematic, reminds me only
of a certain TV networks "Fair and Balanced" sloganeering.

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vijayr
_millions_ in legal fees :(

Can they sue Vandersloot for legal fees? If this was a small magazine or
newspaper, they wouldn't have had the resources to fight back and would've
lost

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FireBeyond
Precisely the point (as raised by the article) - that individuals couldn't
have fought this (indeed MJ covered another journalists legal costs when he
was named as an individual defendant), and how Vandersloot avoided suing
anyone with enough resources to fight back even more aggressively.

