This is a win for anyone anywhere who cares about misinformation from top tier journalists.
MSNBC host Joy Reid (the same woman who claimed hackers put homophobic messages on her old blog) has found herself in hot water for making misleading statements about a female Trump supporter.
A libel case filed against Reid was just revived by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.
What?! A journalist is being held accountable for making purportedly misleading statements?! Unbelievable.
The whole news story revolves around a very misleading photo that was also miscaptioned back in 2018.
Here's an example:
That’s Roslyn La Liberte in the MAGA hat. The photo was taken at a city council meeting in Simi Valley, California on June 25, 2018. The topic of discussion that night was Senate Bill 54 which would limit the ability of local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE. The photo was posted on Twitter along with the caption: “‘You are going to be the first deported’ [and] ‘dirty Mexican’ [w]ere some of the things they yelled they yelled [sic] at this 14 year old boy. He was defending immigrants at a rally and was shouted down. Spread this far and wide this woman needs to be put on blast.”
Joy Reid retweeted it on June 29, the day after it was posted. And if she had stopped there, that might have been the end of the story. But later the same day she posted the photo on her Instagram account and changed the caption:
He showed up to a rally to defend immigrants . . . . She showed up too, in her MAGA hat, and screamed, “You are going to be the first deported” . . . “dirty Mexican!” He is 14 years old. She is an adult. Make the picture black and white and it could be the 1950s and the desegregation of a school. Hate is real, y’all. It hasn’t even really gone away.
The difference is subtle, but whereas the original caption said “they” yelled at the Mexican 14-year-old, Reid’s caption clearly says “she” (meaning La Liberte) had made those comments. The problem is that according to both La Liberte and the 14-year-old pictured in the photo, she didn’t say those things. In fact, in an interview, the 14-year-old said La Liberte had tried to keep things “civil.” Fox 11 in Los Angeles interviewed them both after the photo blew up online.But getting back to Joy Reid, a couple of days after Joy Reid published the photo on Instagram, she published it again on Instagram and Facebook, this time it was juxtaposed next to a black and white image of school desegregation (Little Rock, Arkansas, 1957) with the following caption:
It was inevitable that this [juxtaposition] would be made. It’s also easy to look at old black and white photos and think: I can’t believe that person screaming at a child, with their face twisted in rage, is real. By [sic] every one of them were. History sometimes repeats. And it is full of rage. Hat tip to @joseiswriting. #regram #history #chooselove
Roslyn La Liberte hired a lawyer and pointed out that what Reid was saying about her wasn’t true. Initially, that libel suit went after Reid not only for her own posts on Facebook and Instagram but for her initial retweet on Twitter. The court found that Reid was covered by section 230 of the Communications Decency Act for the retweet because those weren’t her words. As to her own posts on Instagram and Facebook, the court dismissed those claims as well by finding that La Liberte was a “limited public figure” meaning Reid’s posts had to rise to the level of “actual malice” to be actionable.
In today’s decision, the 2nd Circuit agreed with the lower court on the initial retweet and section 230, but disagreed with the characterization of La Liberte as a limited public figure. On the contrary, the 2nd Circuit decision says La Liberte does not have the “regular and continuing access to the media” that makes it possible for her to easily rebut claims made by someone like Joy Reid. Therefore, as a private figure, La Liberte only has to show that Reid was negligent. [emphasis added]
NEW YORK, NY - FEBRUARY 09: TV personality Joy Reid attends The Apple Store Soho Presents Meet The Creator at Apple Store Soho on February 9, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Bennett Raglin/WireImage)