A Colorado state senator disparaged his hometown paper, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, as “fake news” (as well as “very liberal”). The publisher of the family-owned newspaper then responded with an editorial that struck a threatening tone: “see you in court.” [Corey Hutchins, Columbia Journalism Review]
More from Ken at Popehat to newspaper publisher: stop making things worse.
3 Comments
Well, good. I’m tired of this “fake news” easy label being thrown around, on both sides. Let’s move past that (unless we’re talking about The Onion) and just deal with it.
Yes, let’s sue people who use political catchphrases we don’t like until they shut up or are financially ruined.
Unlikely a politician is going to be “financially ruined” by this kind of a lawsuit….the point would be more that maybe they’ll sit up and take notice that you can’t just throw around this fake catchphrase without consequences. Doubt we’ll ever get to the lead dog of this weird phenomenon, but you gotta start somewhere.