Local radio talk show host Austin Rhodes recently prevailed in a lawsuit that claimed Rhodes had defamed a man who alleged he had been injured by some things Rhodes had said about him on the air.
This was not a jury trial, so Superior Court Judge Kathy Palmer made the decision in the case. She found that Rhodes had been telling the truth when he broadcast that James Faller had a criminal history. Rhodes’ motivation for talking about Faller’s convictions had no bearing on the case, according to Palmer, because Rhodes was telling the truth.
Under the First Amendment, Rhodes’ speech is protected.
In the meantime, Rhodes, and his company, Beasley Media Group, had to spend around $30,000 to mount a defense in the case. So, in essence, telling the truth ultimately came at a price, a price that James Faller should be forced to pay for bringing a lawsuit that was ultimately found to be a non-starter.
Every day I write and publish stories that I know are going to raise some peoples’ ire. I have not one but two editors who look over and parse every word I write. The aim of my editors is to keep me out of court for making a linguistic mistake or not having enough evidence to prove my assertions.
The editing process means I must attribute everything that I posit either to another human being or to a public document or it does not get printed. My opinion and thoughts on the issue don’t matter, my editors tell me as they delete sometimes paragraphs of material. I’m just the messenger. I’m supposed to report what I can document, not conjecture, not opinion, not anything I can’t pin down with at least one, and sometimes two or more sources.
Regardless of the rigorous process behind making sure everything under my byline is truthful, accurate and properly sourced, we still have the attorney for Mayor Hardie Davis Jr., former U.S. Attorney Ed Tarver, claiming publicly that I am spreading misinformation and that I am doing it with actual malice.
This is not the case.
I have never called the mayor names and will never do so. Davis’ own statements, actions and the documents generated from his office, the testimony of his former employees, and yes, his receipts – or lack thereof – tell readers everything they need to know about his character, his work as a public servant and his work as a servant of God.
Last Tuesday, Davis pontificated from the Augusta Commission dias that we all “should be our brother’s keeper” and called out The Augusta Press to demean the work that we do to try and expose local corruption.
I am one of the growing number of Augusta Press staff who have the privilege of being able to use this newspaper as a public forum to keep readers and citizens informed about what public officials like Davis and wannabe public figures like Faller are doing.
We at The Augusta Press, like Austin Rhodes, only have to report the news to show the public who’s working in their best interest and who isn’t. Rhodes, of course, is a commentator and not a journalist, as he will be quick to tell you.
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But we have an enormous responsibility as a result of being part of our public forums – a responsibility to tell the truth, “to give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of any party, sect or interest involved,” in the words of Adolph Ochs, the Chattanooga journalist who rescued the New York Times when it was failing in the late 19th century, and turned it into a news powerhouse that today has more than two million subscribers.
All of us who work in news, whether commentators – who mingle news with opinion – or straight newsmen and women face consequences if we misuse our platforms. A good example is radio commentator Alex Jones who found out recently that making it up as you go along is a bad, bad, bad idea after he was hit with a multi-million-dollar judgment for portraying the Sandy Hook shooting as a hoax.
The parents of those innocent children killed exposed Jones as a liar. His words did indeed injure them, and they deserve every dime they get from him, and Jones deserves the public ridicule that is being cast his way.
The truth is the truth. Whether we tell it, whether a radio personality tells it, whether someone else tells it, and telling the truth is a virtuous act, even if it hurts someone who is trying to hide the truth.
That’s what journalists do. We open those metaphorical curtains so the sun can shine in on the public’s business, we point out that the emperor really isn’t wearing new clothes. We do it even at the risk of being dragged into court by a frivolous lawsuit brought because someone is trying to repair a reputation.
Telling the truth is what I will always do and what The Augusta Press will always do. The first amendment requires it of us. And so do our personal and professional ethics.
Scott Hudson is the senior reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
