Iseman v. New York Times

On Feb. 21, 2008, The New York Times ran this article about John McCain and his self-confident image which many people, including his own campaign associates, found to be risky as it blinded him from potential conflicts of interest. This particular mentions McCain's relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman, which to his advisers seemed like a threat to his political identity as it appeared that Iseman and McCain had a romantic relationship.

On Dec. 30, Iseman filed a libel suit on claims of defamation, falsity and fault (negligence and actual malice). She said that The Times had implied that they were in a romantic relationship and that she had taken advantage of their relationship to benefit her clients. Iseman also claimed herself as a private citizen, and therefore was not subject to meeting the “heavy burden of proof” required to prove defamation.

In this case, I don't think that Iseman is a private citizen. Because she was working so closely with a highly-publicized government official, I believe that the media has the qualified privilege to cover her in any news story. Like the Times said, “she had entered the public arena, and was therefore fair game.”

Also, the relationship between McCain and Iseman served as an example of public ethics and of how McCain was unaware at times of “potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest”, which was the main focus of the story. Nowhere in the article did it explicitly say or imply that there was an affair. The article even made a note that the advisers warned against “the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist” would be detrimental to McCain's reputation. Furthermore, the article included fair comment for McCain and Iseman, who both said that they never had a romantic relationship.

The lawsuit against the Times was finally settled, as announced in this article. If this had proceeded to trial, I don't think it would have been a successful libel case for Iseman.