Redskins Owner Considering Lawsuit Over Negative Coverage In Paper
By author
The Washington City Paper is in hot water with Redskins owner Daniel Snyder.
This comical story by Dave McKenna was published earlier this year and outlines the series of failures that have enveloped the Redskins organization over the past decade. Snyder took offense to it, told the City Paper’s parent company he was thinking about suiing and now head editor Amy Adams has published a response to those threats.
In response to litigation threats from the Redskins in which the NFL franchise claims the City Paper engaged in “character assassination” and that owner Dan Snyder was now considering all of his options, the editor of the paper says Dan Snyder shouldn’t bother with lawsuits, but submit a rebuttal column and prove their claims wrong. Yes!!!
The initial Redskins letter read:
"Mr. Snyder has more than sufficient means to protect his reputation…. We presume that defending such litigation would not be a rational strategy for an investment fund such as yours. Indeed, the cost of litigation would presumably quickly outstrip the asset value of the Washington City Paper"
The parent company of the Washington City Paper responded to the Redskins and basically said they’ve retained an attorney, but that the Redskins claims are completely baseless… and they brought First Amendment Rights into the mix.
The direct response from the City Paper to the Redskins read in part:
"…we have offered Snyder the opportunity to publish a guest column responding to the article, we proposed that he meet with our editor to discuss his concerns, and we invited him to provide information demonstrating that what we published was false. If we were to conclude we got something wrong, we would correct it. We also emphatically reject the suggestion that we stop reporting on Snyder or that we pull McKenna, who has written for City Paper since 1986, from reporting on Snyder and/or the Redskins."
Can’t wait to hear the Redskins counter offer!
If this were New York, I would have to think the response to the Redskins letter would go something like this: