Rachel Maddow Will Have to Take on Linguistics Professor in Defamation Suit
Rachel Maddow and MSNBC parent company Comcast are pushing for the end to a defamation lawsuit brought by Herring Networks, the owner of One America News Network (OAN). In court papers filed Monday, the liberal TV host argued that her assessment of OAN as "paid Russian propaganda" qualifies as opinion and thus isn't actionable.
Television host Rachel Maddow at the State Department in Washington on March 14, 2012. (Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images)
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, who was sued for $10 million after exclaiming that the One American News (OAN) network “really literally is paid Russian propaganda,” will now have to explain how she didn't mean it "literally."
The OAN legal team recently teamed up with UC Santa Barbara linguist professor Stefan Thomas Gries, who pointed out that Maddow probably knew very well what she was talking about and should have known that her audience would have taken her assertions literally, The San Diego Times reported.
The professor, after a long analysis of Maddow’s speech patterns while on air, says that when she says “literally,” she means “in fact.”
Maddow made the statement about One American News on her July 22 show: "Their on-air U.S. politics reporter is paid by the Russian government to produce propaganda for that government," Maddow said. "In this case, the most obsequiously pro-Trump right-wing news outlet in America really, literally is paid Russian propaganda."
"Maddow’s statement is utterly and completely false," states the complaint filed on Sept. 9 by OAN's parent company, Herring. "OAN is wholly owned and financed by the Herrings, an American family. OAN has never been paid or received a penny from Russia or the Russian government. Defendants made this false claim to smear OAN’s reputation in retaliation for Plaintiff’s insistence that Defendants treat OAN fairly and offer the OAN news channel to Comcast subscribers."
According to a motion to strike filed on Oct. 21, Maddow's legal team tried to dismiss the claim under the anti-SLAPP statute, which allows legal attacks tot resorts under the freedom of speech and petition. They said OAN "utterly ignores the context of Ms. Maddow’s comment, which is nothing more than a vivid, hyperbolic turn of phrase sandwiched between precise factual recitations that indisputably and accurately state the facts from the Daily Beast article."
In addition, Maddow's lawyer, Theodore J. “Ted” Boutrous Jr., argued that the host was clearly offering up her “own unique expression” of her views to capture what she saw as the “ridiculous” nature of the undisputed facts.
“Her comment, therefore, is a quintessential statement ‘of rhetorical hyperbole, incapable of being proved true or false,’” he said, adding it was a "quote," meaning to say Maddow did not really mean what she said and what she said should not be taken literally.
The NBC Universal logo hangs on its headquarters building in Los Angeles, Calif. in a file photograph. David McNew/Getty Images
If the judge is not receptive to the freedom of speech argument, then the defense may say that Maddow merely relayed without any additions what the Daily Beast already stated as fact.
Boutrous points out that OAN does not dispute the nature of Maddow's claim, namely that Kristian Brunovich Rouz had written at least 1,300 articles over a four-year period for Kremlin-affiliated newspaper Sputnik, contending Maddow's assertions were basically true.
So now it's up to the judge, Cynthia Bashant, in downtown San Diego federal court on Dec. 16 to rule whether the case can be dismissed under the anti-SLAPP statute or whether the OAN team may proceed with its lawsuit.
