Breaking: NCAA Ruling tomorrow

But this is a good time to recall the observation of Ray Donovan, the former Secretary of Labor who was acquitted by a jury on fraud and larceny charges who asked, on his way out of a New York courthouse, "Which office do I go to, to get my reputation back?"

Basically, Rich Rodriguez is a public figure under New York Times v. Sullivan, and not merely a public figure but an employee of a state university.  The story concerned his acts in connection with his public office, and the story did not constitute allegations of anything that, if false, would constitute any actionable defamation per se.  It would be impossible to prove the requisite "malice" on the part of Rosenberg and the Free Press.

This was journalistic malpractice on the part of Rosenberg.  But a defamation action would never even be filed by any serious-minded attorney.

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm a journalist familiar with the laws of libel and slander and I'm quite certain it wouldn't apply here.

Their problem -- or at least they could argue that this was their problem -- was that they didn't understand the definition of countable practice hours vs. noncountable ones. That's pretty damn negligent when reporting a huge story like they claimed this one was, and that was where they turned out to be functionally wrong.

But to be guilty of libel, it has to be proved that you knowingly reported harmful and incorrect information. I'm not saying they didn't know there were inaccuracies, but nobody could ever prove it.

And great point on the "reputation" line, Section 1. You and I seem to share many similar views on this particular issue.