[EL] Arizona Free Enterprise Club and the criminalization of politics.

[Robbin Stewart]

http://ballots.blogspot.com/2014/08/arizona-free-enterprize-club-and.html


" 'Arizona Free Enterprise Club violated election law' ” reports Hasen.

The quotes are important here. Hasen is not making the claim himself,
but is quoting a media outlet. Similarly I am not making the claim
myself, but quoting Hasen quoting somebody else.

The article is here:
http://www.azfamily.com/news/Arizona-Free-Enterprise-Club-violated-election-law-271540271.html.

The source for the article is AP, but my guess is that the headline
was added by azfamily.com, which seems to  be a tv station, channel 3.
Headlines have the difficult job of distilling an article into a few
words. The lede of the article is "PHOENIX (AP) -- State officials say
the Arizona Free Enterprise Club has broken election laws by not
declaring itself a political committee."

The key words there are "state officials say." My concern is that
headline may be defamatory.

It accuses the Free Enterprise Club of having violated law, which, if
it turns out not to be true, would be defamatory per se. When I read
the article, I was surprised that it wasn't reporting a conviction,
but merely an accusation and finding of probable cause. I express no
opinion about whether the Free Enterprise Club is or isn't guilty of
anything. There are First Amendment issues at stake, as well as state
constitutional issues, and these cases can go either way. But here, as
so often, the media outlet is giving only the state's side of the
story.

That's bad journalism. But the headline convicts before trial, and
that might give rise to liability.

A retraction would be in order.

I am no expert on defamation, but some courts are lenient about false
headlines on a true story.
http://www.editteach.org/journalism_research?research_id=30

Others less so.

And it is possible that Free Enterprise Club (FEC?) will eventually be
duly convicted.

But if FEC wanted to fight back, a stern letter promising a libel
action might get some attention.