Fake News Costs

6/28/17 Reuters:

The U.S. ABC television network, owned by Walt Disney Co (DIS.N), has settled its closely watched defamation lawsuit with Beef Products Inc over news reports on a processed beef product that critics dubbed "pink slime," both companies said on Wednesday.

Terms of the settlement, which also covered the Beef Products Inc (BPI) claims against ABC reporter Jim Avila, were not disclosed.

Privately-held BPI had claimed that the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and Avila defamed the company by calling its processed beef product “pink slime” and making errors and omissions in a series of 2012 reports. BPI calls the product "lean finely textured beef."

BPI attorney Dan Webb told Reuters the settlement came together "quickly this week," but declined to provide details, citing a confidentiality agreement signed by both parties.

Some reports say $1.8 billion. And this is likely to end badly for another fake news purveyor.  6/27/17 Breitbart:

On Tuesday evening, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin hired Hulk Hogan’s lawyers and sued the New York Times for defamation for falsely accusing her of inciting Jared Lee Loughner to shoot Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) in a June 14 editorial. The Times’ editorial was published on the day that James Hodgkinson shot House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) while he was practicing for the Congressional Baseball Game with his GOP teammates.

“Today, Sarah Palin took a stand against The New York Times Company by filing a lawsuit which seeks to hold The Times accountable for stating that Governor Palin is part of a ‘sickeningly familiar pattern’ of politically motivated violence and that she incited the horrific 2011 shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords, a tragedy where the gunman seriously wounded numerous people and killed 6, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl,” Palin’s lawyers—Ken Turkel, Shane Vogt, and S. Preston Ricardo—said in a statement.

The complaint, filed in Manhattan federal court, states that “at the time of publication, The Times knew and had published pieces acknowledging that there was no connection between Mrs. Palin and Loughner’s 2011 shooting.”