ESPN afraid of getting sued??

Rob0729 said:

If Mortensen/ESPN knew the report was false and didn't retract it, it may be considered malice. News sources have to retract stories all the time. Usually they bury it somewhere. But the Mortensen story has never been retracted.

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VectorPrime said:

ESPN is owned by ABC which is owned by Disney. The very concept of suing Disney is near suicidal.

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XLIX said:

Agreed. After he wins the court case, where would he go to celebrate??

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ctpatsfan77 said:

I think that if they knew that before the Wells report came out, then, yes, that might constitute actual malice. (IANAL, though, so I can't be sure.) Remember, though, actual malice != malicious intent.

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Actual malice in United States law is a condition required to establish libel against public officials or public figures and is defined as "knowledge that the information was false" or that it was published "with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." Reckless disregard does not encompass mere neglect in following professional standards of fact checking. The publisher must entertain actual doubt as to the statement's truth. This is the definition in only the United States and came from the landmark 1964 lawsuit New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which ruled that public officials needed to prove actual malice in order to recover damages for libel.

This term was not newly invented for the Sullivan case, but was a term from existing libel law. In many jurisdictions proof of "actual malice" was required in order for punitive damages to be awarded, or for other increased penalties. Since proof of the writer's malicious intentions is hard to provide, proof that the writer knowingly published a falsehood was generally accepted as proof of malice, under the assumption that only a malicious person would knowingly publish a falsehood. In the Sullivan case the Supreme Court adopted this term and gave it constitutional significance, at the same time defining it in terms of the proof which had previously been usual. [1])

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ViperGTS said:

Wouldn't you? The NFL has played ESPN like a fiddle. It's great this is being talked about now, but it took the emails from the Pats to do it. What does that say about the media in general?

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Gumby said:

Yes, but.....

As it is almost impossible to prove INTENT (can't see inside someone's head)...

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RelocatedPatFan said:

Right. So ESPN is definitely off the hook unless you can get proof that they had an inkling that the information was false. it would be the source of the supplier of information that had the malice (and probably access to the truth).

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Dennis’s certainty in fingering Kensil as the main culprit is intriguing, because the host is known to have a tight relationship with the Kraft family dating back to his days as a sports anchor on Channel 7, when Robert Kraft was one of the station’s owners. The friendship, particularly with Robert and Jonathan Kraft, is an occasional source of humor on the show.

Dennis believes that Kensil told high-ranking NFL executives Jeff Pash (vice president and executive counsel), Troy Vincent (vice president of football operations) and Dave Gardi (senior vice president of football operations) that 11 of the 12 footballs were deflated to 2 pounds per square inch below the minimum, and that trio passed the information along to Mortensen, thus allowing him to report he had multiple sources.

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If Dennis believes this, it’s a safe bet the Krafts do as well. Too bad we didn’t get to hear him confront Mortensen with his theory. The reporter never would have given up the source – he’d never be fed a morsel of information from anyone again if he did, and that’s his lifeblood as an “insider.”

But it would have been fascinating to hear his reaction. It would be interesting to hear anything from Mortensen about the bungled story, actually. An explanation, if not an all-out mea culpa, about why the story is still on ESPN’s site without a correction is about six months overdue.

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TommyD4207 said:

Well, I mean, the e-mails between the Patriots and the league prove it was false, and after the Wells-Pash Report was released, ESPN had to know it was false.

The story and accompanying tweet are still up today, 3 months after that absolute baseline "when they knew" moment.

They could have claimed ignorance of the truth for a while, but that time has long since passed.

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ctpatsfan77 said:

Because the Patriots are public figures, it does not suffice to show that Mort should have known the story was false. In general, mere incompetence is insufficient.

They would need to show that Mort either did know the story was false, or entertained serious doubts about its veracity.

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