Jacobson's suit doesn't hold water
These days, even reporters are blaming the media for their woes.
That's the only conclusion I can draw from Amy Jacobson's suit against WBBM-TV, Channel 2 and its general manager, news director, anchor and reporter, as well as the Plainfield woman who let Channel 2 use her home to shoot video of Jacobson poolside visiting Craig Stebic.
That video, showing Jacobson in a swimsuit at Stebic's last July, in the midst of covering a continuing story on his missing wife, got her fired from her job as a reporter at WMAQ-TV, Channel 5, although station executives said there were other transgressions as well, such as Jacobson sharing perhaps too much information with police.
Jacobson hasn't been hired since, aside from a short cameo stint doing the news for WLS, 890-AM's Roe Conn. And in the lawsuit, seeking more than $1 million in damages for defamation, invasion of privacy and emotional distress, she blames Channel 2 for almost all of it.
Hey, I'm no legal expert. All I know is what I learned in my media law class long ago. Yet while the Jacobson story is libel per se, in that Channel 2 aired it and it clearly hurt Jacobson's reputation and career, it wouldn't seem to be actionable in that it's truthful and Jacobson is a public figure with a diminished right to privacy.
Jacobson's suit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court by Kathleen T. Zellner & Associates, suggests Channel 2 went out of its way to depict her as "an adulteress and disreputable reporter" and that it manipulated other media forces into making an excuse to release the tape. That's a stretch I believe a judge would find hard to accept. Sure, Channel 2 played up the covert look of the tape and edited it for maximum impact, but not in a way Jacobson herself wouldn't have as an enterprising TV reporter.
The only connotations Channel 2 played off involved a reporter in a bathing suit visiting a man with a missing wife, and Jacobson has no one to blame for that but herself. Jacobson has attempted to explain she was simply taking her children for a swim when Stebic's sister invited her to come over and discuss the case. But still.
Channel 2 President and General Manager Joe Ahern was named in the suit, along with Vice President and News Director Carol Fowler, anchor Rob Johnson, reporter Mike Puccinelli, interview subject Michelle Weldon of Northwestern University and Stebic neighbor Tracy Reardon. Jacobson's husband and children were listed with her as plaintiffs.
"CBS 2 stands by its reporting," said a formal statement issued by the station. "Ms. Jacobson's claims have no merit and we look forward to vigorously defending ourselves in court."
No reason they should feel otherwise.