mroddy@enmasse.UUCP (Mark Roddy) (02/22/85)
> > > The fact that Westmorland dropped his suit has no bearing on the substance > of the CBS story; it merely illustrates the near-impossibility of winning a > libel suit. > Excuse me, but I think the facts were that the testimony of some of Wastemorelands top aids directly supported the entire position that CBS presented on the 60 minutes show. As a result, since there clearly was no libel, the suit was dropped. Before the trial started, there were numerous reports that the show was a journalistic hack, that lots of interviews were edited to conform to the CBS line, and the the producer was a total sleaze-bag. Only it turned out that several of the supposed victims of this video hatchet-job agreed completely with both the CBS position, and how they were presented on the show. To libel someone you have to publicly utter statements that you know to be false, and in doing so cause harm. Taking a position on an historical event, about which there is a diversity of opinion, is not libel. > Let me produce a few episodes of 60 Minutes -- let me choose which parts of > interviews are shown, and which are suppressed -- and I can make Mother > Teresa look evil. Fine, we're comparing a catholic social worker to the general who ran the show in Viet Nam. This country still hasn't dealt with what we did in south east asia, and the Westmoreland case shows that there are lots of people who are desperate to keep things covered up. The CBS documentary skimmed the top of the mass of lies and deception that our government used to keep that war going. The libel suit was a warning to the Press that it will be very expensive to follow in CBS's footsteps. Mark Roddy