Reply #54: The producers of the show covered their asses ... [View All]

[NanceGreggs]

... by issuing a press release today that they were 'still editing' the program, and had not yet come up with the 'finished product' that will be aired this weekend.

If injunctive relief was sought today or tomorrow, ABC could come into court and say, "We have not yet determined what scenes will be edited, deleted, changed, etc. In other words, the Plaintiff is asking the court to determine that we have publicly presented something that skews the facts in a way detrimental to the Plaintiff BEFORE we have done so, and with no way of knowing that we WOULD HAVE done so."

It would be like asking a judge to rule that you MIGHT do something, as opposed to actually having done it. It gives the defendants (ABC, producers, writers, etc.) a legal 'out' by declaring that they were still 'fact checking' and NEVER had any intention of airing the 'objectionable' material if it couldn't be independently corroborated before airtime.

In this situation, there are also the political and PR aspects to consider. Clinton files for injunction to have the airing stopped in its tracks -- and the Repubs have a field day with the publicity: "If he has NOTHING TO HIDE, why would he stop this from going forward?" After all is said and done, they air an extremely cleaned-up version of the program and the viewers wonder WHY Bill Clinton was SO UPSET by something so innocuous.

Again, they covered themselves by publicly announcing today that this was still a 'work in progress'. That means asking the court to rule on the basis of what might have happened, as opposed to what actually DID happen.

I know our democracy is tenuous these days, but we still haven't gotten to the 'Minority Report' form of justice. It is virtually impossible to prove that you WOULD have aired something that slandered me before it hit TV screens -- especially if you, your editors and your publishers all swore to the fact that last-minute changes were still being made that would make my accusations sound like paranoid conjecture.

But as I have said, if this airs and it is a done deal, the onus is on THEM to disprove malicious intent, ignorance of the facts (which are a matter of public record), etc.

If you threaten to slander my good name, that's one thing. If you have already published something that can be determined to have slandered me, that's a whole 'nother ballgame.



Edited to add: Sorry, I missed something you said: "An injunction after the fact will be pretty meaningless."

There can be no 'injunction after the fact'. An injunction motion is brought to secure a court ruling that something cannot proceed until its legal right to proceed is duly settled by the court. As powerful as any court may deem itself to be, there is still no way to unring a bell.