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a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who screws up has a corporate lawyer backing him up because the newspaper knows it needs to be willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars to avoid losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a libel lawsuit. The result is libel lawsuits are rarely filed against major newspapers even when they make major mistakes, and when they are filed, they're usually settled out of court if the reporter obviously blew it.

What I don’t understand is how an NBC can edit a tape of George Zimmerman’s voice, deleting the police question as to the race of the subject (Trayvon Martin), and making Zimmerman’s “He’s black” stand as if Zimmerman were stating it as a reason for suspicion. It would seem that a good lawyer would have Zimmerman owning NBC for the tort of placing in Zimmerman’s mouth meanings which anybody at NBC would cut their own tongues out rather than say in their own voice. On nationwide TV, placing Zimmerman in the position of being in eminent danger any time any black sees him anywhere in the country.
The idea that they can get away with that without being sued for their very underwear is astonishing; it is only explicable, IMHO, in the context of the monopoly which wire service journalism (essentially, the AP and its membership) constitutes. I saw on a web site, in a context which made it hard to doubt, that the AP was found in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act by SCOTUS back in 1945 (in a case out of Chicago). With people like Sharpton having blood on their hands (the fire in a NYC men’s clothing store which killed several people) and the Black Panthers being involved, it looks like NBC, the AP, and the rest of journalism would be subject to a RICO lawsuit for triple damages for obliterating George Zimmerman’s reputation as a human being for fun and profit.

Please accept my apologies for the delayed answer. I just saw your note today.

The short answer of why there's no libel lawsuit (yet) is that the criminal case hasn't yet gone to trial. Many facts which are now in dispute will be clarified by the criminal case. If any libel case gets filed it almost certainly would not be heard until after the criminal case finishes, and there's probably no point in filing until that happens.

The longer answer involves the protections of the “New York Times v Sullivan” case on libel law for media covering public figures. Zimmerman is definitely a public figure, so if Zimmerman wants to sue, he needs to prove not only that the report was false but also that there was actual malice and reckless disregard for the truth.

Could Zimmerman win a libel lawsuit? Ordinarily the answer would be no, not only because libel lawsuits are extremely difficult to win but also because a lawsuit against a major corporation — not just a libel lawsuit against media but virtually any lawsuit — requires massive amounts of money to have any chance of being successful. Normally a corporation (again, not just media) will settle a case to avoid a lawsuit going to trial.

However, the Zimmerman case has become so politicized that anything is possible. What I've seen so far with editing of the 911 tape seems, at least on its face, to be grossly irresponsible.

I'm sitting right now at my county courthouse reviewing the court documents on a variety of shootings, beatings, and other assaults. Nothing I'm dealing with is even close to the Zimmerman case, but I bend over backwards to get my facts right. Stuff happens, and I realize how hard it is to work under deadline pressures, but I have tremendous difficulty seeing how that news report aired without someone catching it during the editing process.

I've seen people fired for far less serious offenses which were totally unintentional. A reasonable case could be made that what happened with the 911 tape in the Zimmerman case was worse than unintentional, but again, we don't have all the facts yet.

Could Zimmerman successfully sue any media outlet other than the original outlet? Probably not. Libel cases are hard enough to win against the outlet which blew it without trying to win a lawsuit against those outlets which relied on AP to disseminate the original report.

There's another reason, however.

My guess is that if Zimmerman has a strong libel case (and he very well may have one) this will never go to trial because he will get a large financial settlement if he wins the criminal case and then sues for libel. How good of a case he may have depends on a lot of internal editing and fact-checking done by low-level as well as senior staff, and we don't yet have the information we need to know the facts yet. Remember, to win a lawsuit, Zimmerman must not only prove the report was wrong but also that it was produced with actual malice and reckless disregard for the truth, and that requires lots of testimony about internal editing and review procedures.

Bottom line: Let's wait and see what happens in the criminal case. If Zimmerman wins, and if he successfully sues for libel, this will have a major effect on a lot of newsgathering procedures and that may be a very good thing.