Whilst we’re on the subject of nasty attacks on prominent women, Fox News has referred to US antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan (who let us not forget, lost her son to the Bush Iraq disaster that the Fox channel pushed for so desperately) as “The Infamous Cindy Sheehan” .
Even from the abyssal depths of an umpty-years-old law degree I’d call that actively defamatory.
Infamous:
- Having an exceedingly bad reputation; notorious.
- Causing or deserving infamy; heinous: an infamous deed.
- Law.
- Punishable by severe measures, such as death, long imprisonment, or loss of civil rights.
- Convicted of a crime, such as treason or felony, that carries such a punishment.
infamous adjective
Known widely and unfavorably: common, notorious. See knowledge/ignorance. So objectionable as to elicit despisal or deserve condemnation: abhorrent, abominable, antipathetic, contemptible, despicable, despisable, detestable, disgusting, filthy, foul, loathsome, lousy, low, mean2, nasty, nefarious, obnoxious, odious, repugnant, rotten, shabby, vile, wretched. See good/bad.
I think we can be reasonably sure that word was not chosen by accident. How long before it becmes a regular appendage to Sheehan’s name on rightwing media outlets?
Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News is also available in the UK, where libel laws are notoriously easier to negotiate than in the US.
Is there an ambitious young legal team somewhere who’d like, given Sheehan’s permission, to take Fox to court for libel and a peace-loving billionaire who’d like to fund them? It could make the lawyers’ career, a la the McLibel trial, and the philanthropist would have the eternal gratitude of the world’s population for giving media megalomaniac Murdoch a big poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
Read more: US media, Fox News, UK courts, Defamation, Cindy Sheehan
