Reporters Who Goad People to Defame? Recalling Muhammad Ali’s Experience before a Labor Arbitrator

Howard Cosell (ABC TV) contacted Muhammad Ali for an exclusive interview after the Ali-Wepner fight. In classic form, Cosell goaded and prodded Ali to fulminate. Ali obliged with a torrent of controversial criticism against the referee. For the interview, Ali was paid $5,000 and was a member of AFTRA, a union that represents TV and radio performers and employees.

The referee sued Ali for defamation. Ali’s attorney’s fees soared to $193,353. He demanded arbitration seeking payment of his fees from ABC. The arbitrator ruled for Ali, in these terms:

“In the instant case, I note Mr. Cosell has publicly stated that his relationships on air with Ali were consistently designed to ‘challenge him’ so that Ali would ‘bang back.’”

One lesson that is relevant today: If a news reporter goads a public figure to make defamatory comments during a paid interview, the reporter and broadcasting company share responsibility for the harmful message.

Definition of Ridiculous: 21 Scientists File Brief in Tom Brady’s Deflategate Arbitration

Should we have a national referendum on Tom Brady’s four game suspension for participating in a scheme to deflate the Patriots' game balls? Now comes word that 21 physicists and engineers have taken time from their professional pursuits to write a brief to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals that questions the science behind an engineering firm’s analysis of the actual game balls.

The gist is reported in Law 360: “The professors said that NFL game balls frequently lose pressure because of the temperature difference between the locker room, where they’re filled, and the playing field, and that the league is aware of this phenomenon. They said Goodell’s data accounted for a natural pressure loss, and then assumed Brady was responsible for the balls losing pressure beyond that. But, he never defined how much air Brady is allegedly responsible for releasing, and an NFL report suggested it could have been as small as 0.14 pound per square inch gauge, which the professors said was too small to infer any tampering.

“To us as scientists, an increment of pressure loss as tiny as 0.14 psig is too small to constitute proof of tampering. It is well within any reasonable margin of error, based on our assessment of the league’s measurements,” the proposed brief said. “The very existence of any increment, moreover, was divined through assumption. The data necessary for any bona fide scientific analysis was never collected.”

I’m not a scientist but the facts show that EVERY game ball on the Indianapolis Colts' side of the field were within the NFL’s legal parameters, and EVERY game ball on the New England Patriots’ side of the field was below the NFL’s legal parameters. To my fellow professors, please apply your talents to more pressing problems where your expertise can be more useful—and keep out of labor disputes, please.