Glenn Beck sued for Boston Marathon bombing claim

[ksen]

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/glenn-beck-boston-marathon-bombing-lawsuit-105238.html

A survivor of the Boston Marathon bombing is suing Glenn Beck and his network for defamation for allegedly calling him a suspect in the bombing after he was cleared by authorities.

Saudi Arabian student Abdulrahman Alharbi alleges the conservative radio and TV personality and his network, TheBlaze, falsely identified Alharbi as a participant in the crimes after he was exonerated, according to Boston Magazine.

Whoops!

 

[Underseer]

Ordinarily, I would worry about the possible chilling effect of lawsuits like this, but if it encourages the media to do less reckless speculating, then so much the better.

 

[Bronzeage]

Let's hope Beck saved some of his gold, so he will be able to pay. However, suits like this are very difficult to win. It's not against the law to be a insufferable prick or bigoted asshole and not illegal to be wrong, even if one is wrong while a couple million people listen to your broadcast.

This will not reduce the entertainment value one bit. The really cool part is that it's all on tape. Beck can't claim to have been misquoted or taken out of context. The truly damaging evidence, if it exists, would be a tape(or testimony) of Beck admitting he knew his accusations were wrong. That is a different world.

Another fun note is this would be a civil trial, so there's none of that 5th amendment stuff to worry about. If it goes to a jury trial, Beck will have to defend himself. He can't just sit in his chair and say, "Prove it." Anything he does not deny or rebut will be taken as true.