Just as "man bites dog" is news (or so they used to say back when newspapers were print-only), it's also news when an editor fights readers.
Lori Kilchermann, editor and general manager of the tiny Ionia Sentinel-Standard (daily circulation 3,100), knows fighting words when she reads them -- as she did about herself.
After readers' Facebook posts and an email accused her of "yellow journalism" and other professional sins, the western Michigan newswoman fought back in county court, the Lansing State Journal reports.
A hearing scheduled for this week was moved to October, when a judge will consider the six defendants' motion to dismiss the slander lawsuit.
The criticism was about a photo was posted last year on the paper’s website with meth bust coverage.
Klichermann, 50, says the readers hurt her reputation in the community and caused economic loss. She seeks more that $25,000 in damages for “humiliation, mortification and embarrassment,” “sleeplessness and anxiety,” and “mental anguish.”
Attorney Dave Gilbert, representing the readers being sued, tells Kevin Grasha of the Journal that two issues are pivotal:
“First, is ‘yellow journalism’ a slanderous remark? It isn’t.
“And second, is it the truth? The truth is always an affirmative defense.”
The Lansing reporter fills in this background involving posting of a file photo from a 2010 Ionia Republican Party fundraiser:
The photo . . .showed a woman, Kristy Cuttle, who was arrested and later pleaded guilty in the meth case.
It also showed four people not connected to the bust — Cuttle’s husband, who had died since the photo was taken, two retired teachers and a woman who helped organize the campaign event.
The story’s headline was, “Four arrested in farmhouse meth bust,” although the photo caption said only Cuttle was among those arrested.
A few days after the photo was posted, the woman involved in organizing the event, Mary Seidelman, called Kilchermann’s office, the lawsuit says, insulted her and threatened to send a man there to “rip her throat out.”
Other verbal abuse allegedly followed, including a complaint emailed to executives at GateHouse Media, the paper's owner in Fairport, NY.
Kilchermann also serves as regional editor for the firm's Michigan publications -- eight dailies, plus 14 shoppers and weekly publications. .
