Speaker 1: It's night side when Dan Ray on WBS cast Radio.
Speaker 2: Thank you Nicole. Yes, I am back, and I first
Speaker 2: of all want to just explain what went on yesterday.
Speaker 2: I want to thank Morgan White who pinched hit for
Speaker 2: me yesterday. Morgan is always there to back me up,
Speaker 2: and I really appreciate what he did yesterday. I got
Speaker 2: hit with something like Monday into Tuesday, and I wasn't
Speaker 2: quite sure what it was. I tested myself for COVID,
Speaker 2: came back negative. Actually dealt with my doctor and I
Speaker 2: explained that lots of felt like fluids and my lungs,
Speaker 2: did a chest X ray, wasn't sure, wasn't sure. I
Speaker 2: think we've kind of settled on it was a bad
Speaker 2: case of bronchitis. You'll hear it in my voice. I
Speaker 2: apologized to everyone. I tried to do a nightside post
Speaker 2: game on Tuesday night Wednesday morning, and I had taken
Speaker 2: a niquill medication, just over the counter medication, and I
Speaker 2: literally was falling asleep as I was doing them. I
Speaker 2: just realized that I was exhausted. I slept sixteen hours
Speaker 2: yesterday and I'm still not one hundred percent. Hopefully you
Speaker 2: won't hear me cough as much as I've been coughing.
Speaker 2: But again it's a cautionary tale for all of us,
Speaker 2: me included, to take better care of ourselves. I think
Speaker 2: this was the first sick day I've had in several years.
Speaker 2: I think of the last time I actually had a
Speaker 2: sick day. So I've been blessed with good health, blessed
Speaker 2: to have Morgan as someone who they get on moment's notice,
Speaker 2: and I just wanted to say thanks to him, and
Speaker 2: thanks to all of you, And let me tell you,
Speaker 2: Tuesday night, I was struggling and at some point I thought,
Speaker 2: well try this night quill stuff. I'm not a big
Speaker 2: niquill guy, to be really honest with you, it hit
Speaker 2: me like a ton of breaks about quarter midnight. So
Speaker 2: apologies to all, apologies around, and again great appreciation of Morgan.
Speaker 2: So we will be talking later on tonight with the
Speaker 2: WBC Car guys. From ten to midnight, Larry and Scott
Speaker 2: Reubenstein will join us answering all of your automotive questions.
Speaker 2: At nine o'clock to night, we'll talk with Joey Noon,
Speaker 2: also known as Joey Voices. Had him on the show before.
Speaker 2: He's a great entertainer, and I think we'll have some
Speaker 2: fun with him. But the first hour tonight, I'm delighted
Speaker 2: to welcome two people who I know very well, the
Speaker 2: Mayor of Everett, Carlo Demiria de Maria, and his attorney,
Speaker 2: Jeff Robins. And some of you may have read in
Speaker 2: the newspaper that Mayor d Maria won a settlement in
Speaker 2: a really vicious set of circumstances. He won one point
Speaker 2: one million dollars in a settlement against a local newspaper
Speaker 2: in Everett, the Everett Leader Herald newspaper, which not only
Speaker 2: agreed to pay the one point one million dollars in
Speaker 2: a settlement, but they also agreed to cease publication after
Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty nine years as part of the
Speaker 2: deal with us. There is also Jeff Robbins, As I said,
Speaker 2: Mayor de Maria's attorney on this, let me start with you,
Speaker 2: Jeff very quickly, that I want to have the mayor
Speaker 2: tell the story. This is an extraordinary outcome. For those
Speaker 2: in the audience who are not familiar with the case
Speaker 2: law in this area, there's a case out of New
Speaker 2: York in the nineteen sixties called New York Times versus suttlement,
Speaker 2: which makes it very difficult for a public figure, of
Speaker 2: which the mayor is a public figure, to win anything
Speaker 2: in a case like this. Can you explain that in
Speaker 2: terms that my audience will understand. I think it was
Speaker 2: a bad decision in nineteen sixty I think it was
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty two. Although it protected people like me in
Speaker 2: the media, I think it ovally protects us well. Dan.
Speaker 3: First of all, thanks for having me, having both of
Speaker 3: us on, and it's great to have you back. You
Speaker 3: are the cal Ripken, the Luke Garrick of broadcast journalism.
Speaker 2: So I like to think of yourself as the Wall.
Speaker 2: I like to think of myself as the Wally Pip.
Speaker 2: I'm always gonna so.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 3: Whenever you're not on on a weeknight, a tremor goes
Speaker 3: through the broadcast journalism community. So welcome back. It is
Speaker 3: an unusual case. You're right. There was a Supreme Court
Speaker 3: case called New York Times versus Sullivan, actually out of Alabama.
Speaker 3: It arose in Alabama, and it's a case which ended
Speaker 3: up holding. Though you're right that it was kind of
Speaker 3: a twisted and tortured case in certain respects that in
Speaker 3: order for a public figure to win a defamation case,
Speaker 3: that public figure had to show not only the usual
Speaker 3: elements of a defamation claim that there was a falsehood
Speaker 3: and that it defamed somebody and did that person damage,
Speaker 3: but that it was uttered with what's called actual malice,
Speaker 3: which is, in brief, either the person publishing it knows
Speaker 3: that what's being published as false or publishes in reckless
Speaker 3: disregard of whether or not it's true or false, And
Speaker 3: so is commonly said, the public figures have a difficult
Speaker 3: time winning defamation cases because of that elevated standard.
Speaker 2: By the way the.
Speaker 5: Case the case set up, this is a sheriff from
Speaker 5: Alabama who is not the nicest guy in the world,
Speaker 5: and he's suing the New York Times, and the New
Speaker 5: York Times was able to win that case against someone who.
Speaker 2: Was not a nice person from what I have read
Speaker 2: about Sheriff Sullivan.
Speaker 3: Well, that's you're right. So much as aught about that case,
Speaker 3: it does arise, and we'll get back to the mayor's situation.
Speaker 3: The case arose from an advertisement to paid advertisement published
Speaker 3: in the New York Times, which had all sorts of
Speaker 3: falsehoods in it, and the Times did nothing to fact
Speaker 3: check the advertisement, even though they're being paid money to
Speaker 3: publish it. And so, as you say, the case held
Speaker 3: that a plaintiff such as the person suing, had to
Speaker 3: show by clear and convincing evidence, if that person were
Speaker 3: a public figure, that what was published was not only
Speaker 3: false intofamatory, but was published essentially knowingly. And so it's
Speaker 3: a high standard, and therefore it's uncommon for plaintiffs who
Speaker 3: are public figures to win these cases.
Speaker 2: So the plaintiff who you represented, Mayor Dean Maria, went
Speaker 2: through years, years of unfair allegations. It became almost a
Speaker 2: uh a personal war against him. Mayor Gean Maria, tell
Speaker 2: us what it was like. You're the mayor. You've been
Speaker 2: elected and re elected in in effort for many years.
Speaker 2: But there was a couple of elections that there was
Speaker 2: an effort apparently by these uh the owner of this
Speaker 2: newspaper and it's publisher and editor uh to take you
Speaker 2: out whatever, whatever whatever the cost, right right, Uh, Hi
Speaker 2: dam and Jeff, how I how you guys doing tonight?
Speaker 4: Than? Uh, thank you again for having us on. Yeah,
Speaker 4: like yourself, I'm a little onto the weather myself with
Speaker 4: that same type of uh food conditions. So if I
Speaker 4: found a little off myself. It's uh, I think I'm
Speaker 4: think I think something's going around, uh Dan, Yeah, but
Speaker 4: uh yeah, you know, for about so prior. I mean
Speaker 4: basically they bought the newspaper and I believe was twenty seventeen,
Speaker 4: twenty eighteen. For four years, they just you know, week
Speaker 4: after week they began with satire and then they ended
Speaker 4: with you know, we have the facts, this is all true.
Speaker 4: This is uh you know, we have witnesses, we have sources,
Speaker 4: and they just I mean from you name it, they
Speaker 4: said it. It was. It was awful. I mean they
Speaker 4: they you know, we get to after we began the
Speaker 4: lawsuit we set up. You know, it takes me away
Speaker 4: from important things, but I just want to kill this
Speaker 4: guy or take him out. You know. It was it
Speaker 4: was truly awful. I mean, Jeff can definitely do a
Speaker 4: better job. But you know what I went through, My
Speaker 4: family went through, my children went through you know some
Speaker 4: of the some of some of this stuff. Actually josh
Speaker 4: Resnik was in working with Andrew Esties from the Boston
Speaker 4: Globe and she was using him as her sources for
Speaker 4: some of her stories. You know, it was, it was,
Speaker 4: it was, It was terrible. Just when I went through,
Speaker 4: my family went through.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I think one of the stories that
Speaker 2: I heard was that at one point your dad came
Speaker 2: to you and he made a comment, which had to
Speaker 2: be a frightening comment that if any of this was true,
Speaker 2: well he said something like, then you're not my son,
Speaker 2: or something like that. I mean, it was.
Speaker 4: Devastating, Yeah, it was. It was devastating. You know. My
Speaker 4: dad was, you know, former carabinarian Italy, came to America
Speaker 4: in the late sixties to follow his sweetheart to America.
Speaker 4: You know, he had a great life in Italy, but
Speaker 4: came to America. My mother came to America first. Uh
Speaker 4: so he you know, I mean his English isn't the greatest,
Speaker 4: but he did read. You know, back when we were
Speaker 4: growing up, Lead the Herald was you know, run by
Speaker 4: the Canine family, who did a great job running the newspaper.
Speaker 4: You know, it was a legitimate newspaper. You know, everybody
Speaker 4: relied on the newspapers, one of the only papers in
Speaker 4: the city. And as you know, it was one hundred
Speaker 4: year of paper.
Speaker 2: Year old paper, one hundred thirty nine year old paper.
Speaker 4: Wow, yeah, it was. It was actually a really I
Speaker 4: mean it was it's unfortunate that this family purchased his
Speaker 4: paper for the mere reason just destroy my reputation. And
Speaker 4: that's what they did. They bought this paper. They actually,
Speaker 4: to the tune of about one hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 4: tred thousand a year used uh subplanted, I guess, so
Speaker 4: used outside fund to keep it operational, just to uh
Speaker 4: ruin my reputation. But so my dad, you know, he,
Speaker 4: like you said, it came came to America, came to
Speaker 4: Edward in nineteen sixty nine or sixty seven and read
Speaker 4: this paper weekly. You know, that's just his This is
Speaker 4: what he That's pretty much the only paper he read.
Speaker 4: So he, you know, thought it was you know, and everybody,
Speaker 4: even all the old timers and the say, a lot
Speaker 4: of people turned against me thinking was being written in
Speaker 4: this paper was true because everyone thinks, if it's just
Speaker 4: a paper, it has to be true, right. The press
Speaker 4: doesn't lie the press, The press just reports. Well, we
Speaker 4: know that's not the case. So you know, one day,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, after you know, as a
Speaker 4: continuously writing these articles and you know, and it stops stopping.
Speaker 4: You know, my dad says to me, you know, this
Speaker 4: is this is true? You know, you're not my son,
Speaker 4: you know, and I said that, you know, yeah, this
Speaker 4: is not true. You know, this is all false, It's
Speaker 4: all made up. And well, how can they keep writing
Speaker 4: this stuff? How come no one's you know, he's thinking
Speaker 4: the government will come in and step in and shut
Speaker 4: it down. Realize that I have to I have to,
Speaker 4: I have to take a suit, you know, and that's
Speaker 4: when you know in Matthew, it was October of twenty one.
Speaker 4: You know, I brought Jeff Robins on Saul E Ring,
Speaker 4: who did a remarkable job. I mean, you know, it's
Speaker 4: kind of sad in the way that we didn't go
Speaker 4: to trial. I was really anticipating watching Jeff's and Joe
Speaker 4: and Page do their thing. I mean, you might other
Speaker 4: information we had. Uh it was just incredible. I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, it's it's just just uh, it would have
Speaker 4: been it would have been great to see them uh
Speaker 4: put this on.
Speaker 2: But uh, you know, the settlement speaks, speaks volumes. Mayor
Speaker 2: let me take a pause here because we've got to
Speaker 2: take up a commercial commercial break. We can back, Jeff.
Speaker 2: I'd like to get into how you were able to
Speaker 2: get all of these notes and information in which they
Speaker 2: basically in depositions, they admitted everything that you needed. It
Speaker 2: seems to me. We'll take a break back with Everett
Speaker 2: Mayor Carlo d Maria UH and his attorney Jeff Robbins
Speaker 2: is with now a very significant firm in town Saul Ewing,
Speaker 2: and Jeff is the first Amendment lawyer. You know him
Speaker 2: from this program from many other issues. He and I
Speaker 2: feel very strongly on the issue with Israel UH and
Speaker 2: the need for that country to to be able to
Speaker 2: defend itself and for us to back that country. But
Speaker 2: this is a different issue. With Jeff Robbins and Mayor
Speaker 2: Carlo Di Maria tonight on Nightside, We'll be right back
Speaker 2: if you'd like to join the conversation or like to
Speaker 2: actually congratulate either of both of these men, because what
Speaker 2: they did this is a long odds to win. With
Speaker 2: a backdrop of New York Times versus Sullibon and give
Speaker 2: us a call six one seven two five four ten
Speaker 2: thirty or six one seven ninety three one ten thirty
Speaker 2: back on Nightside right after the break.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: We're talking with Everett Mayor Carlo de Maria uh also
Speaker 2: with his attorney Jeff Robbins, they have just settled a
Speaker 2: defamation suit against the Everett Leader Herald newspaper for one
Speaker 2: point one million dollars.
Speaker 5: Jeff, Yes, that's fine, We're good now. Jeff, tell me,
Speaker 5: how were you able to basically, through depositions, get all
Speaker 5: of the information that you need to bring this defendant
Speaker 5: in affected their knees and to a point where they're
Speaker 5: willing to pay one point one million dollars and shut
Speaker 5: down a thirty nine year old.
Speaker 3: Well, well, you know, I always think about this famous line,
Speaker 3: this supposed the story about the kid that asked John
Speaker 3: Kennedy how he became a war hero, and supposedly he replied,
Speaker 3: it was easy. They sank my boat. Well you know this, this,
Speaker 3: this wasn't easy because, as you know, Dan is a lawyer.
Speaker 3: This process is very arduous, full of fights over who
Speaker 3: has to turn over what material, endless battles with a
Speaker 3: court to get a judge to require to compel people
Speaker 3: to turn over documents, emails, texts, and other records that
Speaker 3: they don't want to turn over. It's a very expensive process.
Speaker 3: It's a very time consuming process. It's a very dispiriting process.
Speaker 3: It's built, as you know, and now, as the Mayor
Speaker 3: also knows, built into our legal system, for better or
Speaker 3: for worse. It requires a lot of effort. In those
Speaker 3: who can't find somebody to do it'll never have the
Speaker 3: chance to vindicate their rights. A long way of saying
Speaker 3: that this process required the Leader Herald and its owner
Speaker 3: and its editor publisher to turn over literally hundreds of
Speaker 3: thousands of pages of emails and texts. And the hard
Speaker 3: work was done by colleagues of mine, Joe lipshitson Page Strader,
Speaker 3: who spent a lot of time we all did going
Speaker 3: through these things and found documents that were simply amazing.
Speaker 3: They were This is all a matter of public records,
Speaker 3: so I'm not saying anything which isn't emails. As the
Speaker 3: mayor said that said, you know, we're going to carry
Speaker 3: this guy. We're going to crush this guy. We're devastating
Speaker 3: this guy. We're administering a holocaust to this guy. He
Speaker 3: can never survive this. We're going to issue an atomic attack.
Speaker 3: And there were literally hundreds of emails and texts like that.
Speaker 2: In addition, how are you, yeah, how are you able
Speaker 2: to prove that? They also knew that they just weren't
Speaker 2: simply mistaken that they knew that what they would do.
Speaker 2: They must have had some admissions in there that they're
Speaker 2: making this stuff up.
Speaker 3: Well, you're right. The deposition again all matter public record.
Speaker 3: The deposition of each of these in the two individuals
Speaker 3: lasted for many days, and over the course of the deposition,
Speaker 3: in particular of mister Resnik, the editor and publisher, he
Speaker 3: came to admit that he had no basis for making
Speaker 3: the allegations that he made, that he could identify any
Speaker 3: basis that he had fabricated them. And moreover, with respect
Speaker 3: to one series of particularly damning stories, he ended up admitting,
Speaker 3: having first testified falsely that he'd conducted interviews and he'd
Speaker 3: kept notes, he ended up admitting that actually there were
Speaker 3: no notes. There were no interviews, and there were no notes,
Speaker 3: and that what he did was after the lawsuit was
Speaker 3: filed against him, and after he'd been suboena to turnover notes,
Speaker 3: he made copies. He went into a notebook and wrote
Speaker 3: down stuff after the fact to make it look as
Speaker 3: though there were notes when they weren't. He admitted that
Speaker 3: he had concocted quotes which he had falsely attributed to
Speaker 3: somebody who swears that he never said them, and on
Speaker 3: and on it went. Every time he turned around, there
Speaker 3: was more of that. There were emails that he'd sent
Speaker 3: about collecting cash, thousands of dollars of cash from opponents
Speaker 3: of the mayor for the purpose of funding what he
Speaker 3: himself said was an effort to drive the mayor out
Speaker 3: of office by sort of adding thousands and thousands of copies,
Speaker 3: printing thousands and thousands of extra copies and delivering them
Speaker 3: door to door for the purpose of What he said
Speaker 3: clearly was, you know, driving the mayor out of office.
Speaker 3: So the whole purpose of the paper, Yeah, this.
Speaker 2: Was a journalistic hit job. What was the motive it was?
Speaker 2: Was the motive to increase the circulation or was it
Speaker 2: more of a personal motive that they said, we got
Speaker 2: a guy here, let's let's you know, he's a target
Speaker 2: rich environment, let's make him a target rich environment. Why, Well,
Speaker 2: it sounds to me like how do you keep those
Speaker 2: lies straight?
Speaker 3: Well, you've asked several good questions there. The first one
Speaker 3: is one which a lot of people ask. And again
Speaker 3: I'm not speculating here, I'm simply telling you about what
Speaker 3: some of the evidences that's on the public record in court.
Speaker 3: There was testing moaning from the editor publisher that the
Speaker 3: family that owned the paper, mister Philpin, who had an
Speaker 3: insurance business, that had had prior contracts with the City
Speaker 3: of Boston which the mayor didn't continue, who had rooming
Speaker 3: houses and other real estate projects with the city of Everort.
Speaker 3: Sorry did I say anything else? City ever and he
Speaker 3: City of Everett, and he felt that the mayor was
Speaker 3: not sufficiently favorable to the business interests of the family.
Speaker 3: There's a text in which that that is what this
Speaker 3: individual said, that he understood very clearly that his boss
Speaker 3: wanted the mayor defeated, and that was the purpose of
Speaker 3: the publication of the newspaper with what the evidence was.
Speaker 2: Thank god that Mayor de Maria was able to withstand this.
Speaker 2: I know that there was one election that turned out
Speaker 2: to be substantially closer than anyone would have expected. We'll
Speaker 2: talk about that, and we'll continue to talk with Everett
Speaker 2: Mayor Carlo di Maria and his very competent attorney, his
Speaker 2: defamation lawyer, Jeff Robbins of saul Ewing LLP. This is
Speaker 2: this is a good day for journalism because there is
Speaker 2: within the journalistic community still people like this, people like
Speaker 2: the Alex Joneses of the world, who will do anything.
Speaker 2: He's the guy that said that the massacre in Newtown,
Speaker 2: Connecticut at that school was made up. There. I just
Speaker 2: think that, Look, I'm the journalist, but a journalist for
Speaker 2: a long time, but this is well deserved. If you'd
Speaker 2: like to join the conversation, ask a question if you're
Speaker 2: from Everett, Field free six one's seven, two five, four
Speaker 2: ten thirty six one seven, nine three one ten thirty.
Speaker 2: We'll continue with our conversation learning a little bit about
Speaker 2: defamation law and then in the context of this case
Speaker 2: against the backdrop of a very famous federal case New
Speaker 2: York Times Sullivan, We'll be back on night Side right
Speaker 2: after this.
Speaker 1: You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2: We're talking about an interesting case which Everett Mayor Carlo
Speaker 2: di Maria was defamed by a local newspaper and by
Speaker 2: the editor and publisher of that newspaper over a long
Speaker 2: period of time. And uh and it was some very brutal,
Speaker 2: brutal comments that were made and Mayor Dean Maria, this
Speaker 2: had to take a toll on you. And on your family.
Speaker 2: There was one race I forget what, I forget what
Speaker 2: year it was, which you almost lost in large part
Speaker 2: because of the lives that this newspaper was spreading.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah. They they actually at one time they
Speaker 4: put on a ten week campaign from about a month
Speaker 4: prior to the primary and after the primary up to
Speaker 4: the election. It was week after week, every Wednesday, delivered
Speaker 4: to every home in the city, and they just, uh
Speaker 4: the lies were you know, extortion, uh, kickbacks, demily, a
Speaker 4: crime family, uh, quid pro quo, uh, settling, all kinds
Speaker 4: of harassment, lawsuits with females, put a knife to a girl. Stroke.
Speaker 4: It was it was. It was awful. I mean it
Speaker 4: was like week after week after week lies and uh
Speaker 4: you know, so you know, it was it was just
Speaker 4: it was just a U yeah, it was. It was awful.
Speaker 4: I mean it was completely awful. Yeah. Someone just actually
Speaker 4: interrupted me and I was talking here.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It none of this had any you know, look, if
Speaker 2: if you had had a let's say something like a
Speaker 2: car accident, okay, and let's assume that there was some
Speaker 2: little in situation where you yelled at the other guy, hey,
Speaker 2: why'd you do? And if they had something to work
Speaker 2: on that was genuine, but just make stuff up out
Speaker 2: of whole cloth and then try to basically drive you
Speaker 2: out of office.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right. I mean you were saying it was close. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, you think about it, Daan, if a hundred
Speaker 4: people changed am I on that election, I would have
Speaker 4: been out of office, disgraced. People would have believed this newspaper.
Speaker 4: They would have continuously still writing all this awful, terrible stuff.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't have the ability to have, you know, filed
Speaker 4: this lawsuit against them. Yeah. I mean, you know we
Speaker 4: were pulling prior to you know, they they really ramped
Speaker 4: it up in twenty twenty one. I mean that last
Speaker 4: year prior to my election, they rarely ramped it up.
Speaker 4: I mean, the the lies were awful, so bad that
Speaker 4: I mean I was in a bad place mentally, truly
Speaker 4: was because you know, people were believing it. People were
Speaker 4: sharing the articles with friends, you know, family members, people,
Speaker 4: you know. I would see my neighbors were asking me,
Speaker 4: you know, we're questioning everything I was doing. I mean
Speaker 4: it was terrible. I mean I talked about how my
Speaker 4: father asked me that question, you know, I mean he
Speaker 4: wrote it so that you know that you know it
Speaker 4: was as a matter of fact, you know these there
Speaker 4: was a matter of fact. We have sources, we have
Speaker 4: people interviewing with us. You know, it was it was, Yeah,
Speaker 4: it was something godly awful.
Speaker 5: And I mean the media and Jeff can get it
Speaker 5: in this as well. The media has tremendous powers in
Speaker 5: this country, Okay, to influence elections. Different case, different story,
Speaker 5: But obviously had the Alex Jones case, the nut job
Speaker 5: down in Texas who was basically saying the horror that
Speaker 5: he visited upon the families of those kids and parents
Speaker 5: of the six school teachers and the twenties children who
Speaker 5: were massacred on that horrific decevery day. He did it
Speaker 5: to basically make him a bigger and bolder a political figure.
Speaker 2: George Stephanopolis has been suited. Apparently ABC has agreed and
Speaker 2: helped me out here, Jeff on this one. I believe
Speaker 2: that ABC, in a similar fashion, has agreed to a
Speaker 2: settlement to pay fifteen million dollars to the Donald Trump
Speaker 2: Library because Stephanopolos is apparently saying something about Donald Trump
Speaker 2: which was factually incorrect, continued to say it even after
Speaker 2: his producers cautioned him not to say that that Trump
Speaker 2: had been convicted of rape when I mean, the power
Speaker 2: of the media is incredible, but it cannot it cannot
Speaker 2: be used in a way in which it can be
Speaker 2: it can be used to destroy people's lives.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, you're absolutely right. The ABC settlement was fifteen
Speaker 3: million dollars. And you can see the interview in which
Speaker 3: George Stefanopolis, in the process of interviewing Congress Will and Mace,
Speaker 3: says I think at least four times that Donald Trump
Speaker 3: was found libel for rape, which actually is not true.
Speaker 3: The jury slip specifically said that they did not find
Speaker 3: him liable for rape. And your point, though the larger one,
Speaker 3: is a very good one. There is, on one hand,
Speaker 3: this absolutely crucial need, crucial need for the First Amendment
Speaker 3: to be robust and to protect a free press, especially
Speaker 3: visa the government. But on the other hand, as you
Speaker 3: also say, there is a potential for terrible abusive power,
Speaker 3: just like there's a terrible potential for abuseive power in
Speaker 3: every other entity enterprise in American life. There's that capacity
Speaker 3: for massive abuse of power, given how much power the
Speaker 3: press has, if people are cocky or or dishonest, or
Speaker 3: are too interested in clicks and shares to be focused
Speaker 3: on printing the truth.
Speaker 2: I think that the social media, the arrival of social media,
Speaker 2: and it inundates our lives these days. Jeff, and I'm
Speaker 2: just curious if you think that has contributed to the
Speaker 2: sort of wild west attitude that maybe this small newspaper
Speaker 2: it ever had towards mayor de Marine.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and wild west is absolutely the perfect phrase for it.
Speaker 3: That is what the media landscape is. More and more
Speaker 3: and more, it's pretty much, you know, everybody is a
Speaker 3: media entity, unto himself or herself. There's an enormous pressure
Speaker 3: to get clicks and shares and attention. It's also part
Speaker 3: of American culture, and it also drives every media enterprise large, small,
Speaker 3: medium sized to get out there and grab attention. And
Speaker 3: if that means being reckless or clever or pandering to
Speaker 3: a particular segment, well then that's what they do. There
Speaker 3: are some people who feel as though that that's their
Speaker 3: financial model, you know, So you're right.
Speaker 5: I just think it's there has to be a clear
Speaker 5: demarcation between I will read op ed columns, you're writing
Speaker 5: an op ed column. There are people going to disagree
Speaker 5: with your op ed piece, your conclusion. I don't, but
Speaker 5: but others will.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 5: And that's what the op ed page is all about.
Speaker 5: But when you start putting out something as factual and
Speaker 5: putting out in the concept this is a news I'm
Speaker 5: reporting this as a newsperson as opposed to this is
Speaker 5: my opinion.
Speaker 2: Uh. That's that's where where the line becomes very, very shaky.
Speaker 2: And that's where I think this guy Resnick went way
Speaker 2: over that line. And obviously the newspaper's out of business.
Speaker 2: What what's the what is the papers plan? Are they
Speaker 2: going to come back in some other entity at this point?
Speaker 2: Or does does Everett going to have another newspaper mayor
Speaker 2: what's is there any idea what you know? Obviously, Everett
Speaker 2: is a big city that is a lot smaller than Boston,
Speaker 2: and you got the Globe in the Herald, But it's
Speaker 2: also good to have a local newspaper for as well. Correct.
Speaker 4: We have two other local newspapers that do it good,
Speaker 4: decent enough job to report what's going on in the city.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 4: You know, we put what's currency, not create Uh you
Speaker 4: know what's going on in the city, right. Uh. And
Speaker 4: that's the problem with the press I think today is
Speaker 4: that every time you listen to a different news station
Speaker 4: and you read a different article, it's it's uh, it's
Speaker 4: their opinions. You know, no one's reporting anymore. That's how
Speaker 4: I see it. I mean, it's just between the social
Speaker 4: media and and you know that that's why you see
Speaker 4: so many people that are depressed, children that are pressed families.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's just bad. I mean it's it's it's
Speaker 4: a bad time and it's unfortunate.
Speaker 2: But the best example, I think right now, and maybe
Speaker 2: Jeff to come up with a better one, is this guy,
Speaker 2: Alex Jones has a tremendous that's awful. A lot of
Speaker 2: people are can He doesn't say it's his opinion. He
Speaker 2: basically blusters and said, no, this was set up, this
Speaker 2: was this was a this was a false flag. Uh,
Speaker 2: these children weren't, weren't massacred. This He basically made it
Speaker 2: sound like a Hollywood movie. And he wasn't saying it's
Speaker 2: his opinion. He's saying it's fact. And and he was
Speaker 2: sued Jeff, thankfully, and I think that eventually his whole
Speaker 2: media empire will collapse and and he and he deserves it.
Speaker 2: I mean, this guy made no this just as somebody
Speaker 2: who takes journalism kind of seriously. I look at this
Speaker 2: guy and I think, what an impostor he's He pretends
Speaker 2: he's a journalist, but he's anything but a journalist.
Speaker 4: And obviously there's a lot of people like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, no one worse than him though, in terms
Speaker 2: of in terms of ye in size and and and
Speaker 2: the damage that he that he did. Let's take a
Speaker 2: quick break, gentlemen. I want to one more with you,
Speaker 2: and again, if folks want to call in, I'd love
Speaker 2: to hear from you. Six thirty Jeff. As you know,
Speaker 2: whenever we talk legal issuers, a lot of people are
Speaker 2: intimidated and they want to listen to what you and
Speaker 2: the mayor has to say. But folks can certainly call
Speaker 2: in if they'd like. Six one, seven, nine, three thirty.
Speaker 2: Coming right back on the Nightside.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios.
Speaker 2: I'm WBZ News Radio. It's got a couple of phone
Speaker 2: calls in here. Let me go to Joe in Everett. Joe,
Speaker 2: welcome to Nightside. Appreciate you calling in your first this
Speaker 2: hour Nightside. Joe.
Speaker 4: Hey, Dan, I'm an Everett resident. I just want the
Speaker 4: meet and know that the people have ever support him,
Speaker 4: whether it's getting new sidewalks. I live on Woodward Street.
Speaker 4: You know enough, that's enough with these people, these crazy people.
Speaker 4: You know, you had a tough time in the school
Speaker 4: department with the crazies in the school department and now
Speaker 4: this thing. So the people have evert support him, and
Speaker 4: I hope he run for reelection again.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you right there, go ahead, Mayor.
Speaker 4: Thanks Joe. I appreciate that. It means a lot. I
Speaker 4: appreciate that.
Speaker 2: So when you rather, Mayor, what do you what's realize
Speaker 2: is a two year term? You have a four year trim.
Speaker 4: Uh no, the four year term and uh reelection would
Speaker 4: be next year, would.
Speaker 2: Be twenty twenty five. What are you thinking?
Speaker 4: Let's make some news, you know what you know, leaning
Speaker 4: towards running for reelection right now? You know this is
Speaker 4: definitely putting this behind us and shut down the leader
Speaker 4: Harold uh for good. Uh is a great start, and
Speaker 4: you definitely didn't want to go through that again. Having that,
Speaker 4: you know that news shaper and business and writing and stuff.
Speaker 4: That's it's writing, you know, you know, we feel very
Speaker 4: optimistic about running it again, and you know, papers to
Speaker 4: come out in the springtime. So right now, I'm just
Speaker 4: trying to you know, it's it's been a long road. Uh,
Speaker 4: just kind of really just you know, realizing that.
Speaker 2: You have a right to take it. You have a
Speaker 2: right to take a big deep breath, uh and realize
Speaker 2: that that at the end of this things worked out
Speaker 2: really well. And I suspect that if you did decide
Speaker 2: to run for reelection in view of what has happened, uh,
Speaker 2: that that you'd be that you be returned pretty easily.
Speaker 4: What you definitely have a lot of projects to get done.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of a lot of things that we
Speaker 4: want to get done right Uh. You know that that
Speaker 4: pedestrian footbridge from Assemble Row over to the Encore Casino.
Speaker 4: We're trying to get phase two off the ground, the stadium.
Speaker 4: I have a new high school we're trying to get built,
Speaker 4: trying to work with the governor, now the te they
Speaker 4: get a couple of commuterial stops in the area. But
Speaker 4: there is a lot of work to get done. And
Speaker 4: that's one of the things that is driving me to
Speaker 4: uh to look to run it in To be honest
Speaker 4: with you, thank you, you care about you care about
Speaker 4: the working class people. I just have to say that,
Speaker 4: you really do. So I wanted to thank you. Merry Christmas.
Speaker 4: Merry Christmas, Joe, thank you my friend.
Speaker 2: All right, thanks Joe. Iks appreciate you calling it. So
Speaker 2: you have served how many terms? This is finishing your
Speaker 2: second term mayor? Is that correct? Or more?
Speaker 4: No? I uh, I've completed three two year terms and
Speaker 4: this will be my third four year term.
Speaker 2: Oh so they changed it to the four year term. Okay,
Speaker 2: so you've been mayor there for If I'm eighteen years,
Speaker 2: this year will be your eighteen year. If I did my.
Speaker 4: Math, ye, this year coming up will be eighteen years correct.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well again, keep us posted on that. I want
Speaker 2: to just swing back to Jeff for a second. Jeff,
Speaker 2: there's more than than just a case here.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: This has generated a lot of attention in newspapers, not
Speaker 2: only across the America but around the world. What's the
Speaker 2: lesson here? What? What? What? This has to stand for?
Speaker 2: Something more than just one rogue newspaper in one city
Speaker 2: outside of Boston. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I say this as somebody who is involved in journalism,
Speaker 3: who loves journalism and journalists, who represents newspapers and media organizations.
Speaker 3: But there is I think, as we all know, a
Speaker 3: fair amount of mistrust more than fair, a very severe
Speaker 3: amount of mistrust of the media in this country, clearly,
Speaker 3: and this is the kind of case which I think
Speaker 3: proves the point for a lot of people who think
Speaker 3: that there are folks who have this power and don't
Speaker 3: wield it in an honest way. And unfortunately there are
Speaker 3: instances where that occurs, plenty of them. This was an
Speaker 3: egregious example of it, and I think that's why it's
Speaker 3: captured so much attention.
Speaker 2: Their final comment from you, You've gone through this, It
Speaker 2: was not fun to go through. You've emerged on the
Speaker 2: other side with your reputation intact, and the possibility of
Speaker 2: serving four more years in the city that you have
Speaker 2: served so well for eighteen years. I don't want to
Speaker 2: ask you was it worth it? But what's the lesson
Speaker 2: that you took from this, this whole experience.
Speaker 4: The lesson that I took from this whole experience? Yeah, uh,
Speaker 4: when you when you when you need when you need help,
Speaker 4: call Jeff Robinson. Yeah you know, Uh, I don't know
Speaker 4: the lesson I learned from this. It definitely, uh definitely
Speaker 4: made me a stronger person, more resilient, person, you know,
Speaker 4: you know, maybe I guess journalists out there too, you know,
Speaker 4: have some integrity. When you're writing a story and you
Speaker 4: know someone calls you and tells you something, and you
Speaker 4: write a story allegations about somebody, Maybe do some more research,
Speaker 4: you know, not don't just print something and say, oh this,
Speaker 4: you know, allegedly this person did this or that. Do
Speaker 4: the real work, you know, do the real work and
Speaker 4: make sure you're not ruining someone's life, you know.
Speaker 2: So that's a lesson that all journalists should have. Let
Speaker 2: me get one more in here, real quickly before we
Speaker 2: gotta before we got to break here. Let me one
Speaker 2: last caller. Ken is checking in here. Ken, you were
Speaker 2: next to night side your call on late. I give
Speaker 2: you about a thirty seconds or a minute, go ahead, Ken.
Speaker 6: Yes. I read two books by this gentleman, Josh Wesnick,
Speaker 6: and they're in the public library in Chelsea, and they
Speaker 6: discussed the Chelsea fire. I think maybe the penalty was
Speaker 6: a little harsh one the gentleman.
Speaker 2: Well, he might have written written good books about the
Speaker 2: Chelsea fire. Ken, But like anything else, if if you
Speaker 2: have a great surgeon, and he's been a great surgeon,
Speaker 2: but he does surgery on you and he screws you
Speaker 2: up for life.
Speaker 5: That's that's a problem. And what he tried to do
Speaker 5: to Carlo, to the mayor of Everett, has been proven.
Speaker 5: What and and I think that there's a lesson for
Speaker 5: all journalists who feel that they can basically go out
Speaker 5: and hunt public officials as you would hunt, you know,
Speaker 5: an animal in the woods during hunting season.
Speaker 2: That's not what journalists are supposed to do this.
Speaker 5: They're supposed to consider the the information they have, consider
Speaker 5: their sources, check it in double checking.
Speaker 2: Appreciate you call again nonetheless. All right, thanks very much,
Speaker 2: Jeff Robbins, Thank you so much. Mayor Dee Maria. I
Speaker 2: wish you a merry Christmas. I know it's going to
Speaker 2: be a merry Christmas for you and Jeff. I wish
Speaker 2: you and your as a happy honker, and I know
Speaker 2: it's going to be a happy honker for your family
Speaker 2: as well. Every once in a while, the good guys
Speaker 2: do win, and I think of this one, the good
Speaker 2: guys won. Thanks guys. I appreciate it so much.
Speaker 3: Damn, thank you so very much.
Speaker 2: All Right, guys, talk to you soon. When we get back.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk with Joey voices, a great entertainer
Speaker 2: who is gonna have a little bit of fun right
Speaker 2: after the nine o'clock news. Here are nights i'd stay
Speaker 2: with us and we're gonna be doing talking with the
Speaker 2: car guys from ten to twelve. There was someone today
Speaker 2: who had a question about a car. I had no idea. Uh,
Speaker 2: all I gotta do is call the car guys. They
Speaker 2: will answer all your questions. Coming back on the night,
Speaker 2: said right after this