4 ms·

> People magazine attributing something to "multiple sources" in a case where they, and their billionaire owner Barry Diller, would face massive defamation liab

> People magazine attributing something to "multiple sources" in a case where they, and their billionaire owner Barry Diller, would face massive defamation liability if wrong is categorically different from, say, an anonymous Reddit post or a tweet. They could simply name their source(s) if they wanted to be taken as credible. I don't think a brand has any inherent value and hasn't for many decades. The nytimes helped cheney launder fraudulent evidence for the invasion of iraq for chrissake. Fwiw, maybe it is true. But reliable truth sailed a long time ago.

cogman10 10mo ago
It's absolutely defamation if they have no or unreliable sources and something Reiner's son could sue over. They are a big enough publication to know the risks here. They'll reveal those sources to a judge if it comes to it. They won't reveal them to the public because nobody wants to have their name attached to something like this. It could still be false, but I somewhat doubt it is.
- sdenton4 10mo ago
  Meh. Information is often jumbled and wrong in the immediate aftermath of a newsworthy event, and it is tempting to accept tenuous claims which reinforce one's biases. Take the murder of Bob Lee, in which early reports were a bit off and convinced maaaaany people it was a street crime (confirming their biases about San Francsisco). There's no real advantage to accepting PEOPLE's claim at this point. It's possibly wrong, and we'll probably know the truth in good time.
  - benzible 10mo ago
    The Bob Lee comparison doesn't really hold up. The "random street crime" narrative there was driven primarily by right-wing tech executives on social media - Musk, Sacks, etc. - not by news outlets making factual claims. Fox amplified the SF crime angle but wasn't naming suspects (and I put Fox in it own category anyway, based on its track record). Meanwhile, actual newsrooms did reasonable work: the SF Standard put nine reporters on it and ultimately broke the real story. Other local outlets pushed back on whether SF crime was as "horrific" as tech execs claimed. Most importantly: speculating about the type of crime (random vs. targeted) isn't defamation. Naming a specific living person as a killer is. That's a categorically different level of legal exposure, which is why outlets don't do it unless they're confident in their sourcing. If this kind of reckless misattribution happened as often as people here seem to imply, defamation lawyers would be a lot busier and these outlets would be out of business.
- MangoToupe 10mo ago
  That's still a terrible way of evaluating credibility, especially when a determination of defamation is not the same thing as a determination of truth.
  - cogman10 10mo ago
    Like I said > It could still be false, but I somewhat doubt it is. I wouldn't have felt bad if it did turn out to be wrong, I certainly left room open for doubt. But what I know about media outlets is they aren't often willing to put themselves in positions where they could get sued into oblivion. There are obvious exceptions, Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, Candice Owens, but I think those exceptions have a level of insanity that powers their ability to make wild accusations without evidence.
jzb 10mo ago
“They could simply name their source(s) if they wanted to be taken as credible.” Not if they want sources again in the future. Assuming they have credible sources, it will prove them correct in due course. The vast majority of people aren’t grading news outlets on a minute-by-minute basis like this: if they read in People first it was his son, and two weeks from now it’s his son, they’re going to credit People with being correct and where they learned it first. And if People burned the sources who told them this, industry people would remember that, too.
- MangoToupe 10mo ago
  > Not if they want sources again in the future. Then don't report it. Nothing about this story is so worth reporting on. > they’re going to credit People with being correct and where they learned it first. All credibility goes to the journalist. People is just a brand that hires journalists of a wide variety of credibility, like any publisher.
  - benzible 10mo ago
    > All credibility goes to the journalist. People is just a brand that hires journalists of a wide variety of credibility, like any publisher. That's not how any of this works. Publications have editorial standards, fact-checking processes, and legal review. A story like this doesn't get published because one reporter decides to hit "post." It goes through layers of institutional vetting. An individual blogger has the same legal liability in theory, but they don't have lawyers vetting their posts, aren't seen as worth suing, and may not even know the relevant law. A major publication has both the resources and the knowledge to be careful and the deep pockets that make them an attractive target if they're not. And "wide variety of credibility"... what? Do you think major outlets just hire random people off the street and let them publish whatever? There are hiring standards, editors, and layers of review. The whole point of a professional newsroom is to ensure a baseline of credibility across the organization. Seems like you've reverse-engineered the Substack model, where credibility really does rest with the individual writer, and mistakenly applied it to all of journalism. But that's not how legacy media works. The institution serves as a filter, which is exactly why it matters who's publishing.

cogman10 10mo ago

It's absolutely defamation if they have no or unreliable sources and something Reiner's son could sue over. They are a big enough publication to know the risks here. They'll reveal those sources to a judge if it comes to it. They won't reveal them to the public because nobody wants to have their name attached to something like this. It could still be false, but I somewhat doubt it is.

sdenton4 10mo ago
Meh. Information is often jumbled and wrong in the immediate aftermath of a newsworthy event, and it is tempting to accept tenuous claims which reinforce one's biases. Take the murder of Bob Lee, in which early reports were a bit off and convinced maaaaany people it was a street crime (confirming their biases about San Francsisco). There's no real advantage to accepting PEOPLE's claim at this point. It's possibly wrong, and we'll probably know the truth in good time.
- benzible 10mo ago
  The Bob Lee comparison doesn't really hold up. The "random street crime" narrative there was driven primarily by right-wing tech executives on social media - Musk, Sacks, etc. - not by news outlets making factual claims. Fox amplified the SF crime angle but wasn't naming suspects (and I put Fox in it own category anyway, based on its track record). Meanwhile, actual newsrooms did reasonable work: the SF Standard put nine reporters on it and ultimately broke the real story. Other local outlets pushed back on whether SF crime was as "horrific" as tech execs claimed. Most importantly: speculating about the type of crime (random vs. targeted) isn't defamation. Naming a specific living person as a killer is. That's a categorically different level of legal exposure, which is why outlets don't do it unless they're confident in their sourcing. If this kind of reckless misattribution happened as often as people here seem to imply, defamation lawyers would be a lot busier and these outlets would be out of business.
MangoToupe 10mo ago
That's still a terrible way of evaluating credibility, especially when a determination of defamation is not the same thing as a determination of truth.
- cogman10 10mo ago
  Like I said > It could still be false, but I somewhat doubt it is. I wouldn't have felt bad if it did turn out to be wrong, I certainly left room open for doubt. But what I know about media outlets is they aren't often willing to put themselves in positions where they could get sued into oblivion. There are obvious exceptions, Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, Candice Owens, but I think those exceptions have a level of insanity that powers their ability to make wild accusations without evidence.

jzb 10mo ago

“They could simply name their source(s) if they wanted to be taken as credible.” Not if they want sources again in the future. Assuming they have credible sources, it will prove them correct in due course. The vast majority of people aren’t grading news outlets on a minute-by-minute basis like this: if they read in People first it was his son, and two weeks from now it’s his son, they’re going to credit People with being correct and where they learned it first. And if People burned the sources who told them this, industry people would remember that, too.

MangoToupe 10mo ago
> Not if they want sources again in the future. Then don't report it. Nothing about this story is so worth reporting on. > they’re going to credit People with being correct and where they learned it first. All credibility goes to the journalist. People is just a brand that hires journalists of a wide variety of credibility, like any publisher.
- benzible 10mo ago
  > All credibility goes to the journalist. People is just a brand that hires journalists of a wide variety of credibility, like any publisher. That's not how any of this works. Publications have editorial standards, fact-checking processes, and legal review. A story like this doesn't get published because one reporter decides to hit "post." It goes through layers of institutional vetting. An individual blogger has the same legal liability in theory, but they don't have lawyers vetting their posts, aren't seen as worth suing, and may not even know the relevant law. A major publication has both the resources and the knowledge to be careful and the deep pockets that make them an attractive target if they're not. And "wide variety of credibility"... what? Do you think major outlets just hire random people off the street and let them publish whatever? There are hiring standards, editors, and layers of review. The whole point of a professional newsroom is to ensure a baseline of credibility across the organization. Seems like you've reverse-engineered the Substack model, where credibility really does rest with the individual writer, and mistakenly applied it to all of journalism. But that's not how legacy media works. The institution serves as a filter, which is exactly why it matters who's publishing.