AAN Association of Alternative Newsmedia

Chicago Reader Dropped as Defendant in Defamation Suit

By AAN Staff

june 10, 2008 09:41 am

The paper had been named as a party to a defamation suit by former assistant commissioner for the Chicago Department of Aviation James Sachay, which alleged that political activist Frank Coconate had written a comment on one of the Reader's blogs and attributed it to Sachay. The Reader "argued in its motion to dismiss that it enjoys immunity under Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which draws a distinction between a publisher that selects what to publish and the proprietor of a public web forum," Michael Miner writes. "This distinction holds even if the website provider makes some effort to police the site. (Someone here took down the offending comment sometime after it appeared.)" Last week the paper was dismissed as a defendant in response to a new motion filed by Sachay. His amended suit against only Coconate will continue.

View full article at Chicago Reader