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'Coal King' Is Suing John Oliver, Time Warner, and HBO (washingtonpost.com)
Reader Daetrin writes: Robert E. Murray, CEO of one of the largest coal mining companies in the US, is suing John Oliver, HBO, and Time Warner for defamation (alternative source) over a comedic report on the status of the coal industry in John Oliver's "Last Week Tonight". The report began with the decline of the coal mining industry, Trump's promises to revive it, and the plight of the workers involved, but was also highly critical of the business practices and safety record of Murray Energy Corporation and Robert Murray's leadership of the company. When the company was contacted about the piece before airing they responded with a cease and desist letter and threatened to sue. John Oliver continued with the segment anyway, saying "I didn't really plan for so much of this piece to be about you, but you kinda forced my hand on that one."
im glad hes your problem now yanks
black lung is not cool though, save the miners
send oliver into the mines instead
twat
I hate coal, therefore Robert E. Murray doesn't have a legitimate case.
Cease-and-decist letter brief clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
More complete piece on Coal economy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Robert E. Murray is a great big douchebag. Heavy on the douche, light on the bag.
Everyone knows Nat King Cole is the REAL "Cole King".
Robert E. Murray is just an asshat pretender.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
There's someone you should meet. Name's Barbara Streisand, maybe you've heard of her?
If you read the article, you'll notice that Murry has sued a LOT of media companies for critical statements/reporting. The ones mentioned on this article were all dismissed so far.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
Nothing good will come out of this for Murray. For HBO: follow-up segments, viral YouTube posts and millions of dollars in free advertising.
there's no place like ~
bait and switch
In the US, for it to be defamation, it has to be untrue.
That means a couple of things:
We may have to rename the Streisand Effect after this is all over.
Is it really necessary to redirect people to other channels trying to profit off of clips from something HBO already made available for free on YouTube? I'm all in favor of getting around stupid restrictions about viewing content, but there aren't actually any restrictions to get around here.
If you want to skip straight to the part on the Coal economy, go here.
(And it's not "more complete", because again, it's just a subset of the original video.)
If you want to skip straight to the part about the cease and desist letter, go here.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Oh that's gonna be hot.
John Oliver is informative and funny, and he predicted they would get sued, so he was careful to avoid libelousâ statements. Show make for a good follow up show.
WAAAH, they're being mean to me again, WAAAH! I'm going to SUE you, you big meanies, WAAH, WAAAH, WAAAAAAHHH!!!!
That's about how this reads. Someone doesn't have a sense of humor, apparently -- or just needs their diaper changed. Either way I hope some judge tells this idiot to STFU and GTFO.
The only reason to file these lawsuits is for the chilling effect on smaller players. This is high profile, him and his lawyers know this won't go anywhere even if he takes it to the SCOTUS but it gets him the advertising for his policy that his C&D letter promised would happen.
This is only chilling the free speech of smaller YouTube channels that don't have the $8-10k it will cost to defend this in court.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Oliver's show is commentary on the news. If he said nothing that was a lie, they've got no case.
But Murray's scum, anyway. Wanna talk about how he, and the other coal companies, are trying to a) break union contracts, and b) get out of paying into the UMWA Health and Pension funds, leaving miners and their families without healthcare and retirement?
If this does actually go to trial I hope Oliver's attorneys let Oliver do the cross examination. That would be epic television.
I guess still Duke is a to high rank, what about Earl or Baron?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
But, I think it's hilarious when someone talks bad about someone else, and they somehow have the right to get money over it. My philosophy (not saying this John Oliver is correct, BTW...again, didn't see it): If you're a piece of shit, you're a piece of shit. If someone calls you out on it, and you throw a tantrum instead of looking at yourself to fix the ACTUAL issue, you're now a WHINY piece of shit. Sorry - wait no, not sorry.
internationally even.
Besides obviously important pieces like this, he covered a whole piece on Bolivian Traffic Zebras, which in fact got Bolivia's attention and an invitation to come visit and interview them.
He's also done a variety of stories on Putin, the EU, Britain (mocking his birth country with quite a bit of white I might add.), and I think even a bit on Africa (although I don't remember what.)
While he's decidedly left learning in his coverage, he isn't afraid to take blows at lefty candidates and point out when liberals are doing dumb shit, whether as dumb, or worse than conservatives have (sometimes in the same show, other times in loosely related shows.)
I have never heard of it. Maybe it was just to produce an angle in the headline? To be fair it should have been 'Coal King' sues 'Comedy Hack'.
"Well, Your Honor. Weâ(TM)ve plenty of hearsay and conjecture. Those are kinds of evidence. "
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Americans are still provincial enough to believe that an English accent of any kind lends sophistication and cachet
No, we think anyone speaking in an English accent is a villian. Given how many countries England has invaded over the years there may be some truth to that assumption.
I find it interesting that intent has no relevance in your argument.
That's because it doesn't have any relevance. Jon Stewart likes to claim that The Daily Show wasn't news but the simple fact is that it was (and remains) a credible source of news for many people. If you report a fact which is true and people become informed it is a news program in addition to whatever else it might be. It's also pretty heavy on the editorial opinions too. I agree with him that it's sad that a show like The Daily Show has ended up in such a position but for him to pretend that he wasn't a part of the media is disingenuous and/or false.
John Oliver is presenting news whether or not he intends to do so. In fact he and his colleagues do a more credible job of reporting facts than many so-called "legitimate" news organizations.
Eat Shit, Bob!
How can you even think this is journalism
This is clearly not neutral news. John Oliver presents an opinion about certain situations.
Yes he does present editorial opinions but he also presents actual facts. It absolutely is as much journalism as anything else in the modern media. Good luck finding ANY source of news which simply presents facts with no editorializing or political stance. There is such a thing as a responsible source of news but there is no such thing as a neutral source of news. Fox News is typically neither responsible nor neutral much of the time but does cater to a certain audience. I would argue that John Oliver is typically very responsible while also being not neutral and also caters to a certain audience.
But I see the show itself more as entertainment and critique of conventional news.
He often puts his finger on situations where the news outlets forgot their neutrality.
It is that but he also is routinely informing people about issues of the day that they might otherwise not know about. For example his report on FIFA corruption was genuinely news to many Americans for whom soccer is simply not a part of their every day existence. And while he had a very clear position on the topic of FIFA he also reported actual facts which pretty fairly represented how much of a scumbag organization it is.
John Oliver needs to be gawker'd.
Guy enters Australian Customs.
Customs Officer (going down the list): are you a convicted felon?
Guy: Is that still a requirement?
Nice work bob, because of this, I went and watched the episode of Last Week Tonight in question - great watch, lots of laughs. Probably would have missed it otherwise. Hope you have fun in court!
Pllleeeeaaassssse tell me he's suing in a jurisdiction with Anti-SLAPP laws on the books, his history has more than proven that his intent is to try to stifle his opponents with frivolous lawsuits.
Fat slags invariably have no willpower and hence are morally inferior.
In this case, Oliver, being the skinny little bitch he is wins.
I'm trying to work out what Robert Murray's head is shaped like. The only thing I've managed to exclude so far is a head.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The only difference in the UK is that truth is not an absolute defence. In that if you rat out a coworker as gay to your christian boss who sacks him and you get the promotion you were both going for, the claim "But he IS gay!" is not a defence from the damage you wilfully did.
On the other hand, the UK has much more requirement to PROVE DAMAGES. Mental anguish really is worth fuck all.
But the defence of a libel suit doesn't have to prove their innocence, you moron. The defence has no burden of proof, but they may have to provide what they had to make the claim, since they are the ones who made concrete claims. After all, how can the defamed person prove the other person had wrong information or misrepresented the information they had if you don't have that information?
But the accuser in a UK Libel case still has to show proof that it was deliberate deception or a deliberate attempt to harm (and proof of that harm that can be redressed by the court order) to win. The defendent doesn't have to prove innocence of libel, only defend against the attribution of malice.
It's too bad we don't have any laws that protect the right to speak our minds in the US. Oh, wait. We do. It's called the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Fuck off, "Coal King." Go troll somewhere else.
It will probably be thrown out of court.
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