Ok, but to separate that out from what would be a reasonable response from the party (ie. had an a relationship with a staffer) and assess damages, I don't know but it seems difficult to me.
Well, first off, there was no claim of an inappropriate relationship. There's a claim of one incident of inappropriate touching and sexual advance toward a subordinate.
Secondly, trying to assess what portion of the damage is directly attributed to CTV's shortcomings is putting the cart before the horse.
And thirdly, I think Brown's lawyers will be able to make a very strong argument that the bulk of the damage to Brown's reputation and career have come as a result of the sensationalistic and completely false pairing of the words "underage", "highschool", and "
****" in the original article.
That might be impactful if we're talking about the age of the person who complained about him, but not if we're talking about the number of flours of his house.
Michael! We're only talking about the number of floors in his house because it was a key piece of evidence that discredited the witness's timeline of when the incident occurred. Her claim that the incident occurred in an upstairs bedroom of a 2-story house proved that it couldn't have happened while she was still underage or in high-school, because Brown didn't live in a 2-story house until well after she had graduated and was of legal age for drinking. That's why people were talking about the number of floors in Brown's house.
I'd think that if they were doing their due diligence, finding out where the incident took place and finding out whether Brown actually lived there would probably have been key steps in verifying the woman's story.
But wait! There's more!!
The man who she claimed drove him to Brown's house says no such thing ever happened. But that's not the interesting part.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/patrick-brown-allegations-1.4535373The interesting part is that the man says he didn't even know she claimed he did until last week, when CTV called to fact-check the story.
Key excerpt:
The man says he only found out on Tuesday the woman was identifying him as the person who drove her to Brown's when CTV called him to fact-check her story.
In an article published on Wednesday Feb 14, "Tuesday" seems to indicate February 13.
Got that? CTV called him to fact-check the witness's story 2 weeks after they put her story on the air.
Does it really sound like they did their due diligence before this
****-typhoon went to press?
They only decided to fact check her story after she got caught very publicly in a major inaccuracy. That, my friend, is not the action of a network that did its due diligence before they went to air. That is the action of a network that just found out they made a big mistake and is scrambling to find out what else they might have failed to check. You don't investigate your own story 2 weeks after you went to air with it. That's not investigative journalism mode, that's damage control mode.
They done
**** up, Michael.
If it's about a "juicier" story, I think that can only be established if they exaggerated facts. It's "malicious" if they are explicitly trying to do him damage, I think is the definition.
Not so. He doesn't have to show that they were deliberately trying to cause him harm, he just has to show that they caused harm and that they failed to live up to reasonable standards of journalism. (hypothetically, by not bothering to actually fact-check the accusers' stories by interviewing relevant witnesses.)
From an ethical point of view, I think that if you're going to press with a story that is going to destroy somebody's career or their life, you'd better make sure you have your facts right. And if not, "lol, sorry about your career bro" isn't going to cut it.
I don't know that the relationship matters, either, if the facts are right. Why a witness knowing a reporter represents "bias" is beyond me.
It presents an appearance of bias. If you're going to do a story where one of your besties is one of the key parties, your story had better be immaculate. And this trainwreck is nowhere close to immaculate. At this point it has a very slanted appearance, which opens the door to speculation of bias.
If the connection between the reporter and the witness doesn't matter, why did CTV spokesman Mr Garrow say that they investigated before they went to press? You might think it doesn't matter, but CTV clearly thinks it mattered, because when the accusation came out they denied it and said they'd already looked into it before they aired the story.
I already linked the comment from Brown's lawyer a couple of posts ago:
“What I also found somewhat disturbing, and I’m not sure the whole story is out yet, is the relationship that existed between the second accuser and one of the key reporters on this story from CTV,” Sandler said.
“CTV has said they’ve done some due diligence in this area,” Sandler said. “To be frank, I don’t see how they could have done any due diligence to leap to the conclusion that…the relationship wasn’t problematic.”
As I keep pointing out, media outlets normally disclose relationships that might cause viewers to question whether the coverage is biased. "Bell Media is a parent company of CTV News" for example. Because the notion of integrity requires that they put their cards on the table. Why didn't they do so in this case?
Has he sued yet ?
He's announced the intention to sue, and his lawyers are apparently talking with CTV lawyers. I read somewhere that they have asked for an order to have all relevant emails and communications secured by a third party so that they don't get deleted.
-k