Home Miami TV WFOR May Be Sued By Dade Police Director

WFOR May Be Sued By Dade Police Director

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The Miami Herald is reporting Dade police director Robert Parker is ready to take on WFOR because of their ‘erroneous and reckless broadcast’ in which the station broke into regular programming and announced Parker’s son was arrested for armed robbery. Parker wants CBS4 to preserve all notes and documents relating to the October 2 2006 incident and according to a letter from his attorney he is considering a lawsuit for slander and defamation and seeking $500,000 to settle out of court.

Looks like he’s pretty determined, question remains will CBS4 pony up or risk what could be a very nasty public trial. And probably a lot of coverage from WPLG

Miami Herald – Dade police director wants CBS4 to pay

Dwight Lauderdale slamming WFOR for their blunder:

10 COMMENTS

  1. Herald quote, “CBS4 vice president and station manager Tom Doerr declined comment”

    Funny how TV news people, who always demand others respond to them at their command or show up and shove camera in people’s faces, “declined to comment”.

    If this doesn’t show you the hypocrisy and phoniness of TV news then you deserve to watch it.

    The article also quotes some idiot at UM who says that the amount WFOR is being sued for is excessive.

    Do you think if he was the target of the slander he would be arguing for any less of a settlement?

  2. Why would the Doerrman comment? He wasn’t there for those fireworks!

    He’s just the one tearing the place apart. Getting rid of 4’s most talented. Who’s next to get shown the door??

  3. The $500k demand will never, ever fly. It’s absolutely an excessive amount, especially since the report was retracted in a cut-in about an hour later, then in another cut-in 30 minutes later, then in the noon news, and then in the 5pm news. And remember, Parker is a public figure. They almost never win these kinds of suits. Parker is just pissed at some of the stuff Brian Andrews has been uncovering, like the “Friends and Family on the Force” series. In court, he might get $15k, but never $500k.

  4. Jodie, you must work at 4. You seem really dissmisive of how damaging poor reporting can be to people no matter how many retractions you do.

    I don’t beleive the son is a public figure and 4 won’t want to go to court because that will expose how poorly “news” is gathered and the desperation to get it on the air first instead of getting it right first. 4 will pay to see that doesn’t happen.

    Can you imagine the cluster#%$@ of decision making that went into that report being made public? 10 would have a field day!

  5. I don’t work at 4, and I don’t argue that their credibility took a major hit. But the truth is that, at this point, it’s Parker who’s putting this story out there, while the public has long forgotten about it.

    Yes, Channel 4 rushed the story on the air, but it also did a reasonable job retracting it.

    I agree the son is not a public figure, but it’s not the son who’s threatening the lawsuit — it’s daddy Parker.

    I promise you 4 will go to court before shelling out $500k or even a quarter that amount, and it very possibly will win.

  6. going to court will include airing a lot of dirty laundry from WFOR and the news biz in general. That’s one

    Then you have Channel 10, and this is just my speculation, but they are probably going to make sure everyone sees what 4 did which could help 4s ratings perhaps or hurt them even more.

    Putting it out there is simply reminding people what 4 did which is probably worse for channel 4 as they are in a period of trying to recover and make changes.

  7. 10 should not talk about 4’s problems. One should not throw stones in glass houses. The kind of crap that goes on at 10 is unbelievable.

  8. Lump this with 10’s jailhouse interview of Kamal and I guess 10 is the laundry room for local media misdeeds. Good thing they dropped the 5pm hour, I guess they don’t have enough news to fill 90 minutes. Did PostNewsweek sell this station? I expect better from them (but not Pohovey).

  9. Post didn’t sell the station. And ‘FOR is fighting back first trying to be the next ‘SVN now the next ‘PLG?

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