Who are the two dudes supposed to be in the cartoon? Is one of them Peter Thiel, mentioned in the first paragraph of Cecil’s reply?
Almost certainly Thiel, and the guy with the scruffy beard is Gawker CEO Nick Denton. All I did was Google their names using Google images.
A number of people wrote that Rolling Stone descended beyond tabloid journalism and completely into the useless rag category when they published* A Rape On Campus* in the fall of 2014. Several civil suits, resignations, firings, etc., have resulted.
Yesterday I read that the UVA Associate Dean who sued them moved for summary judgement based on the Sullivan test, claiming hard evidence of actual malice. The ragazine turned over emails. The reporter produced 431 pages of notes.
The trial is supposed to be in October.
The woman who lied to the reported is still not named in most reports. She’s been proved a liar several times over and yet, still not prosecuted.
The money damages sought won’t put Rolling Stone out of business.
I remember the Carol Burnett legal victory over the National Enquirer. IIRC, she was awarded the grand some of $1.
No, that turns out to be incorrect, as can be seen here. I must be conflating it with some other case, because I have a clear memory of someone winning $1 in a media libel case and the plaintiff declaring it a moral victory, and I was sure it was Burnett.
Lying is not a crime. I haven’t followed too closely, but I do not believe she lied to the police, in fact, she never reported this fake crime to the authorities.
Are you thinking of the USFL vs the NFL? Because the original $1 in damage was tripled to $3.
Cecil’s column refers to NY Times v. Sullivan in a somewhat pejorative tone, but at the time it was considered a major civil rights victory. If memory serves, Sullivan was some Southern official trying to use libel law to intimidate the national press from reporting on civil rights conflicts in his bailiwick. The part about the US being sui generis in its libel law also reflects the largely unique breadth of the First Amendment.
No, that’s not it. I’m definitely thinking of a lone celebrity. I never was a football fan and had never even heard of the one you mentioned.
Didn’t USFL v NFL involve El Trumpo?
I will have to steal that “El Trumpo”. 
But yes, he was:
I’m pretty sure it was not Trump. My memory is of accusations of drunkenness and alcoholism.
I still feel certain it was Burnett. Could it be possible that she had asked for much more than her award turned out to be and then afterward remarked along the lines of even a dollar would have been a moral victory?