When we cover civil liberties, we touch on the limits of freedom, including one of the limits of press freedom: libel. An unusual example is in the news. Unusual because one newspaper is suing another.
Slate reports on a lawsuit between the major daily paper in Tulsa, The Tulsa World, and its weekly alternative, Urban Tulsa. The weekly questioned the daily's circulation figures and the are now being sued by it:
According to the World's news story, the suit—which I have not seen—alleges that the Bates column falsely claims "that the World had misled advertisers about the newspaper's circulation." World Publisher Robert E. Lorton III tells the World's reporter, "When a firm purportedly in the news business makes a claim that we have misled our advertisers, they call into question our integrity, and we cannot and will not let that stand." According to the World article, the suit—which, remember, I have not seen—says that Urban Tulsa knowingly published the false information in an attempt to "gain commercial advantage."
Lorton could be absolutely right, except here's what Bates actually wrote:
The steep drop between the paid consultant's March 2005 [circulation] count and the March 2006 ABC numbers suggest that the World was inflating its circulation by as much as 20 percent.
Apparently enough wiggle room exists in both the terminology, and in how circulation numbers are tabulated, to make a libel case difficult to win. Slate argues that the lawsuit is a very bad idea:
My unsolicited advice to Bates and Urban Tulsa: Call a press conference, pass out party hats, and say that you welcome the World's suit! Tell the Tulsa press corps you're dying to use the power of discovery to dig deeply into the World's circulation numbers to determine precisely how accurate its audits have been over the last 20 years. Oh, and make sure to enlist one of the World's big, regular advertisers as your ally. They'll be very interested in getting a close-up of the paper's circulation numbers.
