On February 28, Roger Simmons picked me up, and we drove downtown for two scheduled afternoon meetings. Before the first, we went for corned beef and cabbage at Duke Zeibert's with Washington's power‑lunch crowd where Simmons immediately became the center of attention among his friends and colleagues in the legal community.
At 2:00 P.M., after this really fun lunch, Simmons and I met with op‑ed page editor Steve Rosenfeld and editorial writer Patricia Shakow at the Washington Post, which still refused to cut us any slack.
We had asked for the meeting in an attempt to have Simmons's reply published in response to yet another cataclysmic Post editorial, along with a poorly‑researched column by ombudsman Joann Byrd and a heart‑breaking piece of trash written by Book World columnist Jonathan Yardley who had earlier written my favorite review for The Hunting of Cain.
Simmons and I complained that the Post had been uniquely misleading about the issues of our case in its transparent effort to carry water for its traditional rival, the New York Times.
Rosenfeld, whom I had known for years, and Shakow, whom I had never met, could not have been colder toward us. While we attempted to remain measured and respectful to them in spite of their one-sided articles and editorials, the two Post staffers dripped with sarcasm every time they opened their mouths.
Simmons and I specified numerous errors made in the Post's editorials and op‑ed pieces, providing them with our written documentation—including the evidence that the Post had misspelled the same names I had in my book. Seeing that we were speaking to a couple of brick walls, we reluctantly accepted Rosenfeld at his word that they would publish Simmons's reply.
On March 2, after hearing nothing, Simmons called Rosenfeld who replied, "We'll get back to you next week. The story is in the pipeline."
On March 12—after still hearing nothing from the newspaper, which continued to attack us—I wrote a polite letter to the Post's executive editor, Leonard Downie, whom I had a met a few times and always respected.
Finally, on March 23, the Post published Simmons's article, "Beyond a 'Bad Review,'" on the op‑ed page.
Once again, regardless of how long it took, the Washington Post had diffused a volatile situation by merely publishing an aggrieved party's defense.
In his firmly worded article, Simmons insisted:
[Moldea's] complaint argues for honesty and accuracy in opinion writing—something that has long been mandatory in news reporting. It was filed only after the Times explicitly refused both to print a correction and to publish any rebuttal letter regarding its review of Moldea's book.
Contrary to the image the [media have] projected, Moldea is not an assault on the foundations of the 'marketplace of ideas.' It is, however, a demand for opinion writers and reviewers to take a few basic steps to get their facts straight.
Two judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, who are longstanding protectors of the First Amendment and who are among the finest minds in the legal profession, joined in the opinion at issue. They made it clear that Moldea v. The New York Times is most distinctly not a suit over a 'bad review,' or about the use of the term 'sloppy' standing alone. It is a suit challenging verifiably false factual assertions. . . .
Speaking for the court of appeals, Judge Edwards said: "We certainly do not mean to suggest that all bad reviews are actionable. We do hold, however, that assertions that would otherwise be actionable in defamation are not transmogrified into nonactionable statements when they appear in the context of a book review."
Moldea also contends that the Times should be required to accurately identify the biases and credentials of its 'neutral' reviewers, ensure that its reviewers actually read the books they review, and insist that its editors fact‑check reviews against the books under review. Where errors of verifiable fact are made, Moldea's suit argues that the Times should give an author the opportunity for a rebuttal. [1]
Finally, Simmons's outstanding op‑ed piece had correctly laid out our case.
ENDNOTE
[1] Roger C. Simmons, Washington Post, “Beyond a ‘Bad Review,’” March 23, 1994.