Today’s Boston Herald beat its crosstown rival to this story by Owen Boss:
Suit filed against reporter, news agencies for marathon bombings-related report
A Chelsea family with Chechen roots has filed a $105 million libel suit against journalist Michele McPhee and a
handful of news outlets that referenced a story she wrote for ABC News in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, claiming the article had a disastrous impact on their lives and personal relationships.
The Umarov family’s lawsuit — which was first reported by Universal Hub — was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Boston and claims that McPhee’s article published March 4, 2014, titled “Feds Searching for Friend of Boston Marathon Suspect, ‘Concern’ Over Chechnya Trip,” has caused “irreparable damage to their reputations and esteem, as well as a loss of associations, and loss of potential gainful employment.”
The Herald’s web version doesn’t provide a link to the Universal Hub post or McPhee’s ABC piece. Worse, it doesn’t mention that McPhee is a former reporter and columnist at the dodgy local tabloid. You’d think they might’ve included that.
Then again, the Herald piece was quick enough to name the other defendants in the libel suit: McPhee Productions, ABC News, The Daily Mail, Heavy, Inc., News Corp. Australia, DMG Media, the New York Daily News and anti-Islamic activist and journalist Pamela Geller. A lot of deep pockets there.
Crosstown, at this moment anyway, the Boston Globe has nothing on the story.
(Parenthetically, is it just the hardreading staff or is the Globe’s search engine much lamer these days?)
More, no doubt, to come.
It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town 