ABC's Food Lyin' - ABC-TV's shameless attack on Food Lion supermarkets may herald a new era of tabloid TV

National Review, Feb 10, 1997 by Thomas McArdle

Miss Barnett used to be with a Naderite activist group in Chicago, the Better Government Association. She got the Food Lion idea from GAP. Miss Dale, independently, was urged to look at Food Lion by Washington publicist Neel Lattimore, now press secretary to Hillary Clinton. It is clear that the two producers and the union were interested in exactly the same thing: a program that would hurt this large, non-unionized company.

Food Lion wisely sued for fraud and trespassing, not libel, because current libel law has "proven to be an almost impenetrable bullet-proof vest for the media," as one Food Lion lawyer put it. Next, both ABC and Food Lion are likely to appeal, with a good chance that the case will reach the Supreme Court. That's when the real question will be answered: Does the First Amendment allow tabloid "journalists," in the course of doing a hatchet job, to break laws against trespassing and fraud that everyone else must keep?