LIBELOUS POSTS AGAINST EDITOR REMOVED
by Sharon Rondeau
(Feb. 17, 2011) — The Post & Email has received a response from a legal representative of Examiner.com, whom we had contacted several days ago regarding defamatory and libelous statements made by author Bill Bowman.
Examiner.com’s response is as follows:
Dear Ms. Rondeau,
Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. The articles were removed from our site on February 16, 2011, and the author has been notified of your complaint. The legal department was not aware of this matter until receiving your email dated February 16, 2011, however, we take such matters seriously and promptly addressed the matter.
Please be aware that the articles contributed to Examiner.com by various independent third party authors (referred to on our website as “Examiners”) are selected, written, posted and controlled solely by the authors thereof. The Examiners are independent third parties who have selected a topic on which they wish to write, and when they deem appropriate, they contribute content to our website related to that topic. Although the Examiners have agreed to certain standard terms and conditions regarding the content they choose to write and post on our website, the Examiners alone determine the content of the articles and any photographs or video they may choose to include with the articles. Because the Examiners are independent third parties, and the topics and substance of their articles are not controlled by Examiner.com, we are not responsible for, and cannot be held liable for, the content thereof. Examiner.com does not review all of the content posted by the approximately 80,000 Examiners contributing to our website, and we had not read these articles before you brought them to our attention. However, when someone such as yourself points out problems with material posted by an Examiner, we always inform the applicable Examiner and request that the Examiner remedy the situation (or we pull the material from our site if it violates our Terms of Use).
Unlike the article on your website suggests (http://www.thepostemail.com/2011/02/15/the-post-email-responds-to-examiner-writer-bill-bowman/), Examiner.com does expect our contributors to abide by the terms and conditions of our website. Therefore, we respectfully demand that you remove the defamatory statement from the article your website.
We trust that the foregoing will resolve this matter to your satisfaction.
Best regards,
Jennifer M. Osler
Counsel, Business & Legal Affairs
Clarity Digital Group (Examiner.com & NowPublic.com)
555 17th Street, Suite 400, Denver, CO 80202
The Post & Email referenced an article this morning which has also apparently been removed from Examiner.com’s website.
Our response to Ms. Osler’s communication was as follows:
Hello, Ms. Osler, thank you very much for your response. Regarding your request for a retraction, I believe you are referring to the paragraph in my initial complaint which reads:
“From the lack of editorial ethics apparent in Mr. Bowman’s piece today, your publication appears to be nothing but drivel. Publishing personal information about anyone defies proper journalistic standards…”
Since that is part of an actual email and is a matter of historical record, I cannot remove it from the article in which it appears; however, I am willing to issue a retraction of it based on your professional response to my complaint and the removal of the defamatory posts. I will issue a new article today which states such.
Thank you very much for attending to this matter.
Sharon Rondeau
Editor
The Post & Email, Inc.
www.thepostemail.com
203–987-7948
Ms. Osler then clarified:
Ms. Rondeau,
Actually, I was referring to the eighth paragraph in the article entitled, “The Post & Email Responds to Examiner Writer Bill Bowman,” in which you state, “Apparently neither Mr. Bowman nor The Examiner employs the same high standards.” This is not a true statement and should be removed from the article. Please confirm that the statement has been removed by the end of today, February 17, 2011.
Best regards,
Jennifer M. Osler
Counsel, Business & Legal Affairs
Clarity Digital Group (Examiner.com & NowPublic.com)
The Post & Email has therefore amended the eighth paragraph of said article to read:
Apparently Mr. Bowman does not employ the same high standards.
We have sent Ms. Osler a link to the updated article to satisfy her request.
It remains to be seen if Bowman will continue to defame others as he has Dr. Orly Taitz and Walter Fitzpatrick, or if he will leave it to others to do the defaming. Google Cache still displays links to the articles which The Examiner removed on February 16, 2011 as well as websites which reposted Bowman’s articles, complete with obscenities, defamatory comments and untruths.
Update, February 18, 2011: Defamatory articles by Bowman about others under The Examiner masthead have not been removed.
It’s better to let this go, but I have to make one comment which I feel is critical. For all the superior-minded critiquing that the “independent examiner” writer gave, one thing enormous strikes out from this situation like a bolt of lighting; if I read this right, it appears that the Examiner does not do any editorial supervision over the writers. That makes it, IMO, appear that the Examiner is essentially a glorified message board, and the writers have no place to disparage The P&E, which writes professionally and reviews carefully not only the editorial content, but even the comments. Therefore, in my opinion, all the writer did, by disparaging the P&E and its editor, is ultimately draw out a comparison between the Examiner and The P&E in which the Examiner comes out a significant loser.
All one needs to do is fill in a name, (any name) and post a comment. Unfortunately, I feel these people at The Examiner, (a most inappropriate name considering their obvious bias), are a lost cause. They must swoon in ecstacy at the mention of obama’s name. They will not allow any truth to alter their faith and reverence, and Bowman’s words are their gospel.
obama could stand before the whole world and confess all his lies and fraud, and it would have no effect on their undying devotion.
Too bad us Little People can’t, for instance, sue FOX NEWS, or CNN for throwing out garbage every day and expecting us to swallow it. “Moderate muslims” from O’Reilly, and slander against “birthers” from CNN, as in “they are a misinformed fringe element.” But good for the good guys, for once,
Now let’s go after the Attorney General, Eric Holder, for obstruction of justice for not allowing the Dept. of Justice to pursue the case against the Black Panthers, all done, as we all know, on the orders from the White House. Sounds exactly what got Nixon in hot water.
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Mrs. Rondeau replies: All we need is one federal grand jury to do its constitutional duty.
“cannot be held liable” ? Who provides the login authority to post? If it is open then all choose their own and are personally liable for their postings and passwords. If closed the “examiner” chooses who can post by issuing passwords. That makes them liable. Or am I missing something in the new upside down world?
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Mrs. Rondeau replies: Personally I believe they are liable; otherwise, they wouldn’t have removed the libelous articles and forwarded my complaint on to Bowman. If something goes out under their masthead, they are ultimately responsible for the content.
Common sense says you are right. As you pointed out already, all we need is one federal grand jury to do its job. I suspect many would if they were given a chance. That they aren’t is telling of the enormity of the problem.
wnd says scotus to reconsider hollister case
Chalk one up for the good guys.
looks like another friend of PJ Foggy Billy Bryan is caught.
way to go P&E!