There was a time, ten years or so ago, that it was not possible for a jerk to defame respectable people because he had no megaphone. Now every jerk has got one. It’s called Twitter. Leaf captain Dion Phaneuf and his girl friend, Elisha Cuthbert and fellow Leaf Joffrey Lupul. were subjected to a despicable defamation during last night’s hockey game. Unfortunately, the guys at TSN thought it would be a great idea to just run the tweets unedited and unchecked. Now the parties are suing TSN, which is owned by Bell media. Bell also has an interest in the Leafs. Did we say that Bell is too big?. “We have sent a letter to TSN demanding that TSN issue a formal apology and pay a significant amount of damages to each of our clients for broadcasting a false and defamatory tweet during their trade deadline show yesterday,” lawyer Peter Gall says in a statement. During the broadcast on Monday, TSN was airing tweets at the bottom of the screen with the hashtag #TradeCentre. One of the tweets that made it to air mentioned Phaneuf, Cuthbert and Lupul. TSN’s director of communications later tweeted an apology to the Toronto Maple Leafs organization and those impacted, saying that the tweet “should have never, ever gone to air.” Gall says that his legal team has also sent out a similar letter demanding an apology and damages to the author of the tweet, Anthony Adragna. “It is bad enough that there are people who spend their time using social media to publish such false and malicious stories, but it is made much worse when a reputable media outlet like TSN gives broad circulation and credibility to these false stories by republishing them as TSN did,” Gall’s statement says.
