All the WaPo did was post a video recording of him acting like a douchebag.
The right wing media outlets lie endlessly. Why aren’t they sued into nothingness? Fox news, alex jones, etc should have been sued into oblivion by now.
I don’t think Smirky McSmirkface is going to get a nickel. He was in a public place and has no expectation of privacy.
Anyone can sue for anything.
The purpose of the lawsuit is not to actually win against the Washington Post, but to establish the family as victims and get them on the path to receiving some sweet wingnut welfare. That kid is going to college for free, at the very least.
Well I hope the WaPo doesn’t settle and uses this to teach the right a lesson.
What would that lesson be? That wearing a hat is sufficient to be threatened with death by loony celebrities and loony nobodies in part due to libelous representation? I think the so-called right is already sufficiently aware of the deranged nature of the easily triggered rabid left.
I don’t think that he’ll win his lawsuit either, but it has basically nothing to do with whether or not he was in a public place, and nothing to do with whether he had an “expectation of privacy.”
The lawsuit is not for violation of privacy. It is an action for defamation. The only extent to which the issue of privacy is relevant is that Sandmann’s lawyers define him in the lawsuit as a “private figure for the purposes of this defamation action, having lived his entire life outside of the public eye.”
What this means is that he has a lower threshold to meet in order to prove defamation than a public figure. Under New York Times v. Sullivan, public figures have fewer protections against defamatory statements; public figures seeking to win defamation suits have to show that not only was the statement false, but that the person who published it had actual knowledge, or demonstrated reckless disregard, of its falsehood.
Until they take the partisan blinders off it will never occur to them that the WaPo did anything wrong.
The worst part is there was no great mystery. They they had access to video footage of everything that happened from day one. They had it and Nathan Phillips swept at least a few of them up off their feet.
And yet, it’s the right-wing nuts who are actually trying to murder people they perceive as enemies of Trump and conservatism. With one exception (the shooting 18 months ago at the Republican baseball practice), all the acts of violence I’ve heard about since Trump was elected that are related to politics are perpetrated by right-wing nuts against liberal/progressive office holders or journalists.
And you say we’re deranged.
Y’know, octopus, I’ve largely ignored your postings because outside of political threads you seem to be an okay person. I think I’m going to go to actually ignoring you now, though, instead of just scrolling past.
Did the WaPo provide non-editorial commentary on the video? I don’t remember.
I’m not sure how they are going to claim that all of the damages Sandmann suffered were due to the Post’s story. The post only reported the story because it was all over social media and they were hardly the only News organization to do so. If anyone were culpable it would be the person who took the video or Youtube. But since Trump has made the Washington Post his personal enemy, Sandmann thinks he take this the the MAGAbots and be on the GoFundMe gravy train. Meanwhile the Hemmer Defrank Wessels Law Firm gets a whole bunch of free publicity, which will probably have died down by the time the lawsuit gets thrown out.
I assume that they are trying to convince people that this is just the same as the suit by the Sandy Hook parents against Alex Jones, but unlike the Washington post Alex Jones really did play a primary roll in riling people up against the plaintiffs.
Complaint can be read here for great amusement.
The heart of the libel claim:
- On January 19, 20 and 21, the Post ignored the truth and falsely accused Nicholas of, among other things, “accost[ing]” Phillips by “suddenly swarm[ing]” him in a “threaten[ing]” and “physically intimidat[ing]” manner as Phillips “and other activists were wrapping up the march and preparing to leave,” “block[ing]” Phillips path, refusing to allow Phillips “to retreat,” “taunting the dispersing indigenous crowd,” chanting “build that wall,” “Trump2020,” or “go back to Africa,” and otherwise engaging in racist and improper conduct which ended only “when Phillips and other activists walked away.”
The defamation claim is pp. 19-21, and is that the Post published, without independently verifying their truth, quotations from Nathan Phillips about what happened on the Mall.
Seems likely the lawsuit will get tossed at the first serious hearing, for failing to state a claim under modern libel law. But the Trumpeters will get to bleat for months and months about how the MSM destroyed this poor lad’s life.
Don’t forget the most important thing: it will justify to them, even more than now, that Trump packing the courts with conservative judges is not only justified but necessary.
Your amusing conclusions are drawn from an incomplete knowledge of the facts.
Interesting, then, that you didn’t post any of those supposed additional facts, huh?
Often, I will simply say stuff like “if you have actual reasons, post them.” But I’m not feeling so charitable today, so I’m just going to call this what it is: A deceitful practice.
This is a short, confident but unbacked statement that uses an obvious truism to push a particular point of view.
Being short means it will be automatically read. Being confident creates the illusion of winning and making it seem like you must have a reason for your statement. But not giving that reason leaves it not open to debunking.
And then statements like “an incomplete knowledge of the facts” are always true to some extent. No one can ever possibly have all facts. As such, it serves as a way to confirm the “amusing conclusions” claim, which clearly implies the conclusions are very far off. And it is, of course, derisive, which continues the “confidence” thing I mentioned earlier.
Of course, there are tactics to be used against what I said. One is just to ignore me, and hope that people ignore my post since I’m not particularly well-liked. (It’s also indistinguishable from not having come back to the thread or deciding the topic has moved on if you do come back.) Another is to accuse me of overthinking it. A third is to pick something I said, interpreted it in a weird way, and go to town on that.
But what you won’t see (unless I’ve actually goaded them into it) is actually spelling out what facts are missing and how this led the poster to make an utterly wrong conclusion.
It’s frustrating, but I refuse to give up. And this was just the easier one to unpack.
Funny, then, that you don’t provide this supposed non-partisan argument about what Washington Post did wrong.
Rather than going with being short, this one uses projection. Accuse the other side of what you yourself are doing.
A non-partisan look at this is that WaPo did what all news articles do: they posted about the story, and reported what the alleged victim said. They made no claims of their own about the incident.
octopus, on the other hand, takes a partisan look. He pretends that WaPo is responsible for what other people do. WaPo not having done anything wrong is inconvenient to his argument, so he pulls in the death threats and harassment, which are obviously wrong.
There’s also the continued assertion that the MAGA hat was the only reason anyone was upset, despite repeatedly being told by the people who were upset what the problems actually were. This is, of course, the classic strawman. No, he’s not bad simply because he wore the hat. But that was never the claim.
What Covfefe is doing is simply coming in for the assist of someone who is using more blatant dishonest tactics. He make a completely partisan attack on the left, even using snarl words. So Covfefe comes in and pretends his opponents are the actual partisans.
And, again, no actual evidence is proposed.
And, yes, I’m sure some of you can see everything I’m saying. But I’m trying to point it out so that maybe we can stop doing this over and over with these people, and hoping that pointing out how their tactics are not actually arguments will somehow get through to them. They’ll realize they have nothing to support their own opinions.
Oh, and watch out for this being used to deflect from the fact that nothing substantially changed with the additional video information. A more advanced tactic is to move on to the next argument while assuming something not proven.
The stuff about the tactics that may be used to argue against me still applies. If they can make an honest argument, it would involve making a claim and then providing evidence to support that claim.
(Another tactic may be to claim I’m “lecturing” or being condescending. It’s a great way to deflect from the claim.)
For starters, the kids weren’t the ones targetting Phillips, or the group of Native Americans – it was the Black Hebrew Israelites:
Right. It’s all the fault of the kids.
It was out of laziness, fear, and frustration.
I’m not on either side. I think CovCath students should be treated with a certain baseline dignity and certain ugly assumptions withheld before there is better information. That often isn’t happening in the couple of threads there have been because they fit a profile of being privileged and seemingly entitled.
When someone is in a rally or protest and alleges victimhood via intimidation, the right thing to do is interview those who were there, get as many relevant perspectives as possible. Better yet if there is video.
I don’t agree with octopus here. And I don’t think the threats and harassment are directly connected enough that this kid will get much of a legal windfall. I hope there can be a quick settlement out of court for a fraction of what they’re asking - seems like that would be a reasonable outcome without knowing the intricacies and being under the impression he would not have been considered a public figure where he was. It’s very unfortunate this became a national story. I can think of few clashes less worthy.
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21445778&postcount=59
Okay, you came into the thread about this in GD with patently incorrect information. You thought they were chanting racist slurs that video proved they weren’t. You thought they were telling people to go back to their country. You thought they were college students. I haven’t found where you’ve amended or acknowledged you have accurate information now. I don’t know if you have ever read anything about what happened. I would have loved to back up what I’m saying and doing that is scary because I already knew this about you, and it feels like I could be talking with someone who doesn’t think the earth is round.
I’ll grant that it was a dishonest tactic on my part. The reason for it is that octopus was less wrong, terrifying, and dangerous than the other contributions to that point (mhendo’s post came after I started responding) and to some extent I agree with his perspective on this topic from seeing his posts in another thread.
I’m having trouble finding an upload of the entire footage from a source I know to be neutral enough. If such a thing exists, that plus the platform they gave Nathan Phillips is my lazily submitted evidence.
Who’s the we? I agree with you on a lot of political related things. I am terrified of what a world would be if we normalized doxing others based on a few characteristics we know of them and not their actions - which is usually misguided as well. Do you understand? This makes some of the most vulnerable people in society afraid to leave their homes. Do you not respect some mentally ill people are afraid to venture away from home and in a world of many cell phones don’t want people out there to instigate unforced conflicts by taking things out of context? I do not consider those who don’t care or use tu quoque arguments when confronted with the bare truth of this harassment to be on the side of minorities. Yes, both sides do it. The point is you (certain someones, not necessarily you BigT) should be capable of saying one thing is bad without always following it up with saying, ‘what about the other side’.
I think I can unequivocably say Nathan Phillips smeared these students. Watch the footage and put yourself in their shoes.
I would never claim you are lecturing or being condescending. 
My tactics are more redeemable.
By saying I reject the position that the WaPo did nothing wrong, that is hardly taking a side fitting in with the way that two sides are being discussed.
I’ll eat my hat. Trump has already urged the brat on, battle lines have thusly been drawn.
Serious newspapers don’t settle over straight news reporting.