Libel: What's in a Name?

During the years that Drew Pearson's syndicated column "Washington Merry-Go-Round ran in the Fairbanks, Alaska, News-Miner, Pearson's most constant detractor was C.W. (for Charles Willis) Snedden—who happens to be the News-Miner's Publisher. It seemed to Snedden that the columnist never got anything right about Alaska, not even the cost of a gallon of gas in Fairbanks, which Pearson quoted at $1 (actual price at the time: 51¢ to 54¢). Finally Snedden could stand no more. "The garbage man of the fourth estate " his paper sneered in an editorial as it dropped the column

This description joined the list of unflattering epithets —among them "chronic liar," "journalistic polecat" and s.o.b.—that have already been hurled at Pearson without puncturing his hide. But the News-Miner's phrase hit him smack in the reputation—or so the columnist claimed in a $176,000 libel suit. In his own defense, Pearson produced almost half a dozen character witnesses, among them the gentleman farmer whose 499 acres are near the Pearson property in Maryland: US Senator Wayne Morse.

Last week in Fairbanks, Superior Court Judge Everett Hepp decreed that Columnist Pearson had not been damaged. The recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that public officials cannot collect for public criticism unless malice is proved (TIME, March 20), said Judge Hepp, should apply equally to public cnticizers. As for the aptness of the News-Miner's description, Judge Hepp made no direct comment. But he was moved to include in his decision a question raised by the defense counsel: "How many garbage pails must a person empty to be called a garbage man?"