Review-Journal Double Standard: Hold Angle Harmless While Suing Dem Party, Progressive Organizations
On the day the Angle campaign comes to defense of R-J’s indefensible editorial bias, local reporter calls paper on blatant bias in lawsuit filings
On the very day Sharron Angle’s U.S. Senate campaign came out in defense of the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s obvious editorial bias and soft handling of the its candidate, another blatantly biased move by the R-J was exposed.
The Review-Journal has engaged Righthaven LLC to sue dozens of website owners and operators – including the Nevada State Democratic Party – for reposting all or part of Review-Journal stories, allegedly in violation of fair use laws. Among the plaintiffs are several progressive organizations and, yes, a cat blog.
Notably absent from that list, local reporter and blogger Steve Friess is now reporting, is the Angle campaign and SharronAngle.com. Friess has been a vocal defender of the Rigthhaven lawsuits as a way to protect intellectual property. Yet he points out that despite reposting Laura Myers embarrassing work of “journalism” – aka, an Angle apologist puff piece – from Sunday’s R-J, Righthaven has yet to slap the Angle campaign with a lawsuit.
Oh, but they haven’t had time to sue the campaign for reposting Myers Sunday “article,” you say. It’s only Monday.
But wait! Friess has provided with handy screenshots of pro-Angle stories run by the R-J and then – whoa! – reposted by the Angle campaign on its website. The screenshots of articles from August 13 and August 9 and August 6 and June 9 are incontrovertible evidence that Angle’s campaign should have received hefty legal papers from Righthaven seeking damages, oh, months ago.
Friess says the he’s posted the screenshots assist Righthaven folks with litigation that one can only assume is immediately forthcoming. Writes Friess:
“Y'see, based on their own statements and those of Righthaven chief Steven Gibson, they now have absolutely no choice. They must sue Sharron Angle. For damages…
The Righthaven approach is to sue first, ask questions later and Gibson has been proud of not taking an ideological slant in which sites they attack. This means even if Angle takes these down, they still must sue her and pursue damages…
Righthaven must sue. It took effort to find the cat blogger, but this one was on a major candidate's site, there in plain sight. If they don't sue Angle, they provide dozens of infringers with a clear example of the company's inconsistency in defending its copyright. And there goes the whole enterprise, right there.”
But despite how easy Friess has made it for Righthaven, looks like the hand that pulls the string at the R-J has already gotten to RIghthaven boss Steve Gibson.
"I don't have time to review every case I receive a call about,” he told Friess today.
The hypocrisy isn’t lost on Friess, who writes, “I can totally see Sherm Frederick, never a paragon of consistency or logic, instructing him to lay off Angle to avoid generating embarrassing headlines for the candidate. Would Sherm do the same for Harry Reid? Duh. Of course not.”
Friess goes on to point out that since Gibson claims that he has no ideological bent (despite working for a right-wing newspaper like the R-J), Righthaven v. Angle is the perfect test case. But apparently Gibson is too “busy” for that. Besides, his boss and the R-J’s publisher Sherm Frederick wouldn’t want to embarrass his friends at the Angle campaign.
“It’s no surprise the Review-Journal would target Democratic and progressive organizations while holding the Angle campaign harmless,” said Phoebe Sweet, communications director with the Nevada State Democratic Party. “After all, the Review-Journal doesn’t have the integrity to keep the bias of its editorial page off the pages of its news coverage, so why would the one-sided attacks stop inside the pages of its newspaper? This is yet another obvious example of how the R-J is in the Angle campaign’s pocket, a mouthpiece for an extreme and dangerous agenda and a radical candidate Nevada can’t afford to see serve in the U.S. Senate.”