Sarah Jane Comrie is a random woman who was recently caught in the vortex of a scandal.
She is white, and recently found herself in a dispute with some black teens over who had the right to use a citi-bike that either she or the teens had paid for.
A video of this incident went viral, and was covered by a number of news organizations.
It appears that the teens were in fact attempting to steal the bike from her. Her attorney has produced two citi-bike receipts from the time the video was recorded. The first was (allegedly) the bike in the video, which she then re-attached to its post to resolve the dispute with the teens. The second was another bike that she rented to actually get home.
It’s possible the receipts are fake. But it’s pretty unlikely. It’s not clear how her attorney could fake receipts on the app, and if he did that will become clear in court and he’ll lose his license.
The news outlets covered this story a little differently than I would have.
Yahoo entertainment described the situation thus: “Citi Bike Karen” placed on leave after screaming for help while trying to steal in viral clip
In another article from Yahoo news:
A Karen is getting blasted online after faking her tears while trying to steal a Black man’s rental city bike in New York City.
Tomas Kassahun
In Bicycling Magazine: “Pregnant NYC Karen” on Video Trying To Steal a Black Man’s Citi Bike
The video was also pretty heavily covered by black media outlets.
Welp.
This is a pretty easy defamation case. Sarah Jane Comrie is not a public figure. So, to make a claim for defamation under New York Law, all she has to show is:
- The accusations against her were false
- The outlets accusing her of racism/theft/Karening were negligent (i.e. they did not exercise ordinary care).
- The accusations caused damage to her.
She got suspended from her job and got quite a number of death threats, so it’s not super hard to show damage.
Showing negligence is also pretty easy. There’s literally no evidence in the video that she’s at fault, so it was kind of wild to throw those accusations around. Plus, journalists are really not supposed to report that unconvicted people committed crimes. That’s why you see the word “allegedly” in stories even when it’s pretty clear someone was guilty.
And, I think it will become pretty clear in time that the accusations against her were false.
A jury is going to be pretty sympathetic to Comrie here, I think. This woman was (allegedly) the victim of a group crime, she’s pregnant, she was clearly distressed, etc. and then a lot of journalists called her a racist thief and thousands of strangers told her to kill herself. Not good for Yahoo’s bottom line!
There is a Pattern of Journalists and Public Figures being Shocklingly Cavalier About Defaming the Subjects of Viral Videos.
Here is AOC describing Daniel Penny’s killing of Jordan Neely:
This is also plausibly defamation! It’s not as strong a defamation case as Sarah Comrie’s, but it’s not an unwinnable case.
Generally, journalists were actually pretty careful about Daniel Penny. Even outlets quite unsympathetic to him were careful to avoid the word “murder.”
Journalists were less careful in the case of Nicholas Sandmann, the skeezy looking kid at the center of the Covington Catholic controversy some years ago, where some schoolkids, wearing maga-hats, appeared to be bothering an older Native American man named Phillips. And then it turned out they weren’t actually doing that.
He and the other students filed a lot of suits. They successfully settled against some journalists who had been careless. They lost against journalists who’d carefully described Phillips’ report as just one side of the story.
But it’s surprising that anyone at all was so careless. All of these teams have good lawyers.
I am not sure why journalists (and AOC) are so careless about defaming private persons.
But if I had to guess, I imagine the problem is the Sullivan standard.
If you’re a public figure, if you want to sue for defamation, you need to show that the defaming person wasn’t just negligent, but acted with actual malice. That’s pretty hard.
But random people thrust into the public eye by a viral video aren’t public figures.
Heavy news coverage of alleged misconduct by random strangers is really a new thing under the sun.
So journalists might just need some time to develop procedures and mores that can prevent them from getting sued – this is riskier territory than typical news coverage, and so it’ll be a while before they can keep their ids in check.
Slowly they’re getting the hang of it. You can see that in the more cautious coverage of Penny than of Sandmann.
The ones who fail will not survive.
Indefensible Expectations 