{"id":208624,"date":"2019-08-19T17:21:25","date_gmt":"2019-08-19T22:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=208624"},"modified":"2019-08-20T14:41:32","modified_gmt":"2019-08-20T19:41:32","slug":"live-action-newsweek-slanderous-cease-desist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/live-action-newsweek-slanderous-cease-desist\/","title":{"rendered":"Live Action responds to slanderous Newsweek article: ‘Cease and desist’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Live Action has long been a target of ongoing <\/span>Big Tech suppression<\/span><\/a>, with its pro-life content facing increasing hostility. An <\/span>opinion piece at Newsweek<\/span><\/a> written by Sharon Kann recently attempted to paint Live Action and its founder and president Lila Rose as liars on the subject of suppression. Live Action News <\/span>debunked the Newsweek op-ed<\/span><\/a>, which was riddled with inaccuracies and responded by demanding that Newsweek either remove the article entirely or allow Live Action the opportunity to publish a rebuttal. With no response from Newsweek\u2019s Global Editor in Chief, Nancy Cooper, Live Action has decided to issue a cease and desist letter. If Newsweek does not respond, then Live Action will be forced to pursue all legal avenues available, including a court injunction and financial relief.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sharon Kann is a writer <\/span>whose career<\/span><\/a> has largely consisted of pro-abortion advocacy. Most recently, Kann was the \u201cabortion rights and reproductive health program director at Media Matters.” The piece not only attacked Live Action, but cast aspersions on the character of Live Action’s founder and president, Lila Rose.<\/span><\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Newsweek claims Live Action lies about big tech censorship \u2013 and has no proof to back it up<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The problems with Kann’s article are numerous, and were originally outlined in a letter sent to Newsweek’s editor-in-chief, Nancy Cooper, from Alison Centofante, Live Action’s Director of External Relations. The text is shown below:<\/span><\/p>\n

Friday, July 26, 2019<\/em><\/p>\n

TO:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Nancy Cooper, Global Editor in Chief, Newsweek\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On behalf of Live Action and our Founder and President Lila Rose, I am writing to request an immediate retraction of Newsweek\u2019s online article written by Sharon Kann, published per the following link<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Alternatively, if Newsweek is not willing to retract this article, then we ask for the opportunity to promptly publish a rebuttal article.\u00a0 The reasons for our request are in accordance with applicable journalistic and legal publication standards, as follows.<\/em><\/p>\n

First, the article is written as an \u201cOpinion\u201d piece, which is grossly inaccurate given the extent reported information is presented as factually true. Such presentation seems intentionally aimed at drawing the reader into an opinion article, only to be fed lies and other misinformation as if they were verified.\u00a0 Not so; such misreported information could never be verified because it is not true. In fact, the reported information consists of actionable defamatory libel and slander against both Live Action and Ms. Rose.<\/em><\/p>\n

Second and more specifically, the article is inaccurate factually in a multitude of ways. Live Action has clear and longstanding proof of its pro-life educational content being suppressed from distribution by social media entities, with easily obtainable evidence to demonstrate such wrongful suppression, including the following:\u00a0physical emails from Twitter<\/a>; screenshots of blocked Facebook ads (see attached);\u00a0 a Slate reporter\u00a0bragging about getting Live Action videos eliminated from top search results<\/a>; and\u00a0internal Slack messages at Pinterest<\/a>\u00a0stating Live Action is a “p*rn*graphic site\u201d among others.\u00a0 A simple “Google” search would have shown that The Washington Post itself has\u00a0covered Live Action’s censorship<\/a>\u00a0more accurately and fairly. All of this information is publicly available online, but I’ve attached full documentation of our situation for you exclusively here.<\/em><\/p>\n

Shockingly, Ms. Kann\u2019s article includes\u00a0not a single line\u00a0referencing the verifiable facts of our suppression. Instead, she claims that since Live Action and Ms. Rose reach large audiences online, it is impossible to face bias.\u00a0 But the bias obviously goes the other way, with Ms. Kann suppressing the truth in a journalistically unbalanced and biased way \u2013 and with Newsweek\u2019s ringing endorsement through its online publication.<\/em><\/p>\n

I would be more than happy to further address the article and the additional materials per above, to answer any questions you may have, and to address alternative options such as to publish a rebuttal article from Live Action and Ms. Rose.\u00a0 From a journalistic, ethical, and legal perspective, however,\u00a0Newsweek\u2019s appropriate response at this point is to redact the article<\/strong>.\u00a0 Please note further that in the absence of your response or other suitable corrective action per above within 48 hours, we are prepared to seek all available legal relief including a court injunction and available financial relief for both Ms. Kann\u2019s and Newsweek\u2019s trade libel against Live Action and their defamation and false light tort liability against Ms. Rose.<\/em><\/p>\n

I look forward to your prompt response and appreciate your careful attentiveness in this matter.<\/em><\/p>\n

Centofante pointed out that Kann’s article contained multiple inaccuracies, which Live Action News <\/span>outlined in July<\/span><\/a>. To reiterate, Kann ignored notable evidence, including <\/span>e-mail exchanges between Live Action and Twitter<\/span><\/a>, internal messages from Pinterest <\/span>labeling Live Action as porn<\/span><\/a>, and pro-abortion Slate writers bragging about having Live Action’s videos <\/span>eliminated from top search results<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>on YouTube. In addition, see further documentation of <\/span>Big Tech’s social media suppression of Live Action here<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n