Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Blogger must be careful with comments
The Watertown Daily Times published a story on Aug. 14, in the North Country briefy section, about an individual who was charged by the Jefferson County sheriff’s deputies at 8:09 p.m. Aug. 12 on County Route 8 in the town of Lyme with unlawfully fleeing a police officer, endangering the welfare of a child, reckless driving and speeding. The individual was accused of driving 116 mph in a 55 mph zone on Route 12E, passing two vehicles with another approaching in the opposite direction while his 3-year-old son was a passenger One of the local blogs in Cape Vincent that had just settled a defamation of character lawsuit with residents of Cape Vincent for comments posted about them on her blog was quick to jump on this story and allowed comments to be posted on her blog insinuating that I was that individual, when in fact, I was not. .Continue... Watertown Times
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3 comments:
Looks like somebody had their mother or her attorney write a letter for him. I suspect the law would say the fact that someone confused Cory White with Corey White is a reasonable mistake and not defamation. Also, if John Doe is known to frequent the local bars and then drive home after possibly consuming more than he should and then the paper runs a story about Jon Doe getting a DUI, it is reasonable for people to assume John Doe got the DUI because of possible previous behavior.
As an old friend use to tell me, beware of your assumptions in life. It is easy as we get involved in situations to make the wrong assumptions, to prejudge, to make a knee-jerk reaction to events. This story about 'Corey' was not about 'Cory.' The fact that some of us may have made comments that were inaccurate and inappropriate is regrettable. For that I apologize to Cory. He has in the past been a legitimate target for criticism, but on this issue he was not.
Yup!
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