Back when I was fingering David Jungerman as the likely killer of Kansas City lawyer Thomas Pickert — months before Jungerman was arrested and charged — a former Kansas City Star reporter was going around telling people I was open to being sued for libel.
The former reporter, with whom I worked during my forgettable 16-month stint in The Star’s former Johnson County bureau, was right about only one thing: I was open to being sued. Anybody is open to being sued. But there’s no way in hell Jungerman could have won.
Same is true in the case of Kansas Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, who on Monday sued former part-time, Kansas City Star columnist Steve Rose for libel.
I say former columnist because Rose resigned faster than it takes to write, “I’m sorry.”
The speed of Rose’s resignation might lead some people to think Denning might be able to prevail in a libel suit…That and the facts The Star is not defending the column and has now pulled it from its online inventory.
(The Star first published a relatively short Associated Press story about the lawsuit on its website and later published a more fleshed-out version by Jonathan Shorman of the Wichita Eagle. Neither story is played prominently, however; I had to search by name to find the first one; the second is well down in the drop-down list of local news stories.)
But, no…Denning, mainly because he is a public figure, has virtually no chance to prevail if the lawsuit goes forward. I’m sure he knows it, and I’m sure his attorney, Michael J. Kuckelman of Overland Park, also knows it.
In filing the suit Denning probably wanted two things: Rose’s resignation and a public apology from Rose and The Star.
He’s already got the first part, and the speed with which this is developing indicates he’ll very likely get the second.
In the column, which ran online and in Saturday’s print edition, Rose said Denning had “finally confessed to me” a few reasons that he has opposed Medicaid expansion in Kansas.
Among other things, Rose wrote: “The senator said he resents able-bodied Kansans, regardless of their income, who abuse the system by accepting free medical care when they refuse to work.”
Kind of condescending and snarky, right, if he said that?
In his lawsuit, Denning alleges two things: He did not make any of the statements Rose attributed to him and he and Rose had not spoken in two and a half years.
Rose admitted to Shorman — who wrote the more recent KC Star story — that he had not spoken to Denning since April 2018 and that it was even before then that Denning had made the statements he attributed to Denning in Saturday’s column…So much for “finally” confessing, eh?
Denning’s lawsuit indicates he has some idea of what went on within The Star relative to how the column developed. His petition asserts that when Rose initially submitted the column for publication, he did not attribute the statements to any specific elected official.
The suit says: “One of the Kansas City Star editors instructed Rose to attribute the comments to some elected officials. Rose was up against a deadline. He was under pressure to obtain a source for the statements he conjured up (and)…under the deadline pressure, Rose gave the editor the name of Senator Denning, though in reality, Rose had not interviewed Senator Denning for the article.”
Denning apparently got his knowledge about how the column might have developed from his chief of staff, Ethan Patterson, who exchanged emails with Rose on Saturday, after publication.
**
Let’s make a quantum jump here and assume everything Denning alleges in his lawsuit is correct — and I doubt it is because Rose just can’t be that stupid. But even if what he says is so, Denning doesn’t have a libel case.
In both Missouri and Kansas, to defame a public figure — as Denning most certainly is (and Jungerman is and was) — what is written or spoken must…
:: Be false
:: Cause material harm to the plaintiff or damaged his or her reputation
:: Have been written or spoken with “actual malice”
A key standard for malice is showing that the writer or speaker not only put out false information but did so with “reckless disregard” for the truth.
On count 1, Denning would have difficulty proving that he never made any of the statements to Rose that Rose attributed to him.
On count 2, he would have difficulty proving that Rose’s statements caused him material harm or damaged his reputation.
On count 3, it would be almost impossible for him to prove that Rose deliberately and maliciously made up the statements he attributed to him.
**
On the other hand…
This whole thing probably will be a big black eye for The Star, in an era when the newspaper industry has been fading and public favor with newspapers have been sliding for more than a decade.
The situation looks especially bad for The Star’s seven-member editorial board, which produces the editorial page and the Op-Ed page, and particularly for Editorial Page Editor and KC Star Vice President Colleen McCain Nelson.
I regret that because, as I’ve written, the editorial page has been one of the few bright spots in recent years. After becoming publisher three years ago, Tony Berg fired the only editorial writer still on the staff, Yael Abouhalkah, and set about reconstructing the editorial board and page. It was a bold and laudable move because many papers, in the interests of saving money, have allowed their editorial pages to go the way of dead flowers. Berg went against the grain and invested heavily on that front, and it paid off.
Colleen McCain Nelson
But Nelson, a fine person and excellent journalist, will survive this. Whoever edited Rose’s column should have pressed him on when, exactly, he interviewed Denning, and maybe even asked him to produce his notes. Nelson’s overarching sin, however, was allowing someone who was not a full-time staff member to write a regular, weekly column. I presume Rose was paid by the column, which makes him a free lancer.
Free lancers are inherently more problematic than full-time staff members because managers have less control and contact with them — elements that are essential in the development of ideas and the actual line-by-line editing.
I don’t know who edited Rose’s columns. Maybe it was Nelson. Maybe it was someone else. Maybe it was whoever was available on a given week. Whatever the case, you can bet we will not see any more free-lance columnists appearing regularly on the Op-Ed page.
Not only that, but the copy submitted by all editorial page writers will be getting a lot more scrutiny. The editorial-page editing lid is about to be tightened quite a bit.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Well, for starters, Fitz, you’re not a lawyer. There is also a different thing, malicious defamation. You’re also not a mind-reader, nor do you have a Magic 8 ball.. So if they get a jury trial, who knows? Finally, YES, Steve Rose is that dumb.
And Rose has been that reckless and lacking in ethics for decades. He endorsed Annabeth Surbaugh for “county mayor,” Chairman of the Joco Bd of County Commissioners on the front page of the Sun Newspapers, WITHOUT DISCLAMING THAT HE WAS HER CAMPAIGN MANAGER!
Good riddance…
Well, I was just trying to be charitable, Tracy…even though the one time I talked to Rose on the phone (several years ago) he said he’d never heard of me. Never heard of me! Why, I was dumbstruck!
I suspect you may be right about the lawsuit, Fitz, but disagree vehemently with your assessment of the new editorial board. Berg alleged that he was trying to assemble an editorial page with ideological diversity and that goal has failed miserably.
If there is a bright spot at The Star right now it is with the investigative work of Vockrodt and Hendricks, and possibly some of Marso’s stuff. But the editorial board is a joke.
If anything, they need to fire the lot and then hire independents like you, Tony Botello, etc on a per column basis and put you under the auspices of a good copy editor and fact checker. (When I had my column, I footnoted every factual statement.) That would save money to spend on doing the one thing bloggers can’t do as well as full-time journalists, create original news on a regular basis.
Berg’s tenure has been a complete failure. He simply doesn’t get it. He destroys the paper’s institutional news memory, firing seasoned, largely respected journalists and replacing them with newbies who aren’t even sure how to find the office. He then squanders his scarce resources on high-priced, carpetbagging opinion writers who have been both an ideological and ethical embarrassment to his stated goal of making the paper friendlier to a broader audience.
When they fire the editorial board, they need to send Berg packing with them.
By the way, with Sanchez booted out the door, Doesn’t that make the editorial board officially all white? Maybe they should hire Nathan Phillips. They seem to have a penchant for lying, fraudulent, out-of-state Native Americans with no record of achievement.
You’re nearly six months late on the Mary Sanchez news, John…I’m going to have to start giving online tests to make sure you’re staying on top of the JimmyC posts!
https://jimmycsays.com/2018/08/03/mary-sanchez-has-left-the-building-and-other-kc-star-tidbits/
…And they do have one minority board member — Toriano Porter, who was named a year ago.
https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/article194984934.html
I don’t know what happened, but I’m grateful to Steve Rose for helping me find freelance work after I got laid off from the Star.
That’s one of the many things everyone likes and admires about you, Julius — you’re always looking for and pointing out the positive. Thanks.
FWIW: The story by Jonathan Shorman is on page 3 of today’s print edition. Colleen Nelson is quoted: “The column has been removed from kansascity.com while The Star investigates.” It should be a short investigation. Rose has admitted he didn’t conduct a recent interview with Denning, even though his column left that impression. The only question that remains is whether he has retained any notes from his talks with Denning in prior years which could substantiate his column, or if it was totally based on Rose’s memory.
You wrote “Nelson’s overarching sin, however, was allowing someone who was not a full-time staff member to write a regular, weekly column.” By that standard, Steve Kraske should be laid off.
As for “the editorial-page editing lid is about to be tightened quite a bit,” that was Tony Berg’s pledge after the 2016 rape-column fiasco. He needs to question Nelson hard as to 1) who edited Rose’s column, 2) why the questions which are being asked now weren’t asked before publication, and 3) if disciplinary action is called for in this matter.
I’mm sure you know, Mark, that the rape column ran before Colleen was hired. That was when the ed page was down to Yael and Lewis Diuguid.
Regarding Kraske, you’re really reaching there when you compare his status to that of Rose. Steve was a full-time employee for 30 some years before taking the KCUR/UMKC posts and going down to part-time status with The Star. He can be trusted 100 percent.
Two comments, and then I’m done.
1) Of course I know that Nelson was hired roughly a half-year after the rape-column. But, if Berg didn’t make clear to Nelson that he didn’t want a repeat of that fiasco, I would be amazed. Yet, the Star now has another fiasco on its hands in part attributable to a poor editing job by the editorial section.
2) “You’re really reaching there when you compare (Kraske’s) status to that of Rose.” Oh come on, Jimmy. You are the one that pointed out that an editor needs a lot of contact with their columnists. Do you really believe that an editor can have sufficient contact with a columnist who is constantly offsite with a daily radio show and teaching college classes? If you do, then your blanket objection to freelancers loses credibility. Kraske may have been full-time for the Star for many years (and Rose wrote a column for the Star for many years), but that does absolutely nothing to change the fact that “managers have less control and contact with” him these days.