Chris Core, a morning host on WMAL in Washington is being sued by a Prince William County resident who wrote a column admitting that he hired day laborers:
A local newspaper columnist is suing radio host Chris Core over comments he made on his show in early October.
Woodbridge resident Gary Jacobsen said Core “falsely and maliciously” accused him of breaking laws concerning illegal immigrants. He is suing Core, host of The Chris Core show on 630 WMAL, for defamation of character. A judge in the Superior Court of Washington, D.C., will hear the case on Nov. 12.
Jacobsen, an independent journalist who writes a weekly column for the Potomac News, wrote a column in the Washington Post’s “Close to Home” section on Oct. 7. In the article, titled “How to Hire a Day Laborer,” Jacobsen describes how he hired day laborers to do painting and repair work at a house he and his wife own.
Not surprisingly, Core, who has talked about illegal immigration a lot in the past year, saw the article and decided it might be worth talking about:
The column ran in the Washington Post’s Outlook section on Oct. 7. Later that night, Jacobsen said, a producer from the Chris Core show called him and asked him to discuss the article on the radio show on Oct. 8.
“One of the producers called me and said that Chris Core had read that article and the topic was going to be the leading story on their Monday show. So they asked if I would come down to the station to discuss or debate it,” Jacobsen said in a phone interview Friday. “I declined.”
Though he declined to be on the show, his column was still discussed on the Oct. 8 broadcast, Jacobsen said.
On the show, Core said that, in his column, Jacobsen “admitted to breaking the law concerning the hiring of illegal immigrants,” Jacobsen said.
(…)
Core went on to say that Jacobsen had broken the law by hiring illegal immigrants, and asked listeners to “contact local, state or federal authorities” to have Jacobsen arrested or fined, Jacobsen said.
Jacobsen, apparently, objects to Core’s contention that he hired illegal aliens and broke the law, claiming that the column never mentioned illegal immigrants, and that he could have been referring to “[A] college kid trying to earn extra money.”
Yeah, sure, because there’s a ton of Harvard alums hanging out at 7-11 looking for work.
Alum means you graduated from college, a “college kid” would still be attending college, therefore making your last statement arbitrary.
arbitrary: arrived at without allowing argument or objection.
You’re correct that an “alum” is a college graduate, but I think you are searching for is “wrong.”
If you make false, derogatory remarks about another person you are opening the door to a slander lawsuit. If the remarks are made over the airwaves, it becomes libel. Sooo…if you are not SURE that your comments are truthful, don’t make them!