SCOTUS Rebuffs Coal Baron’s Suit Against News Orgs

NBC News reports:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to consider overturning a landmark case that gives protections to news organizations facing defamation claims by rejecting an appeal brought by West Virginia coal baron Don Blankenship.

Blankenship, also an erstwhile Republican Senate candidate, sued various news organizations for referring to him as a convicted felon when in fact he was convicted of a misdemeanor in relation to a mining disaster in 2010 that killed 29 miners.

He claimed that his loss in the 2018 Republican Senate primary in West Virginia was attributable to the erroneous comments repeated in the media, which he suggested were deliberate. Among the defendants were MSNBC, CNN, Fox News and the Washington Post.

Read the full article. Blankenship followed his failed 2018 Senate bid with a failed 2019 independent bid for president, which flamed out in weeks.

His Senate bid included this admission in a video ad: “They are calling me a bigot, a moron, a despicable character and mentally ill. But even if all of this is true, I will do a better job than they have done.”