D.A.R.E America v. Rolling Stone Magazine

• Decision Date: 27 April 2000
• Docket Number: No. CV 99-1132 VAP CTX.,CV 99-1132 VAP CTX.
• Parties: D.A.R.E. AMERICA, a California non-profit corporation; Glenn Levant, Plaintiff, v. ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE, whose legal name is Straight Arrow Publishers Co., a corporation; Jann Wenner; Robert Love; Does, 1 through 10 inclusive, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Central District of California

101 F.Supp.2d 1270

D.A.R.E. AMERICA, a California non-profit corporation; Glenn Levant, Plaintiff, v. ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE, whose legal name is Straight Arrow Publishers Co., a corporation; Jann Wenner; Robert Love; Does, 1 through 10 inclusive, Defendants.

No. CV 99-1132 VAP CTX.

United States District Court, C.D. California.

April 27, 2000.

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Louis R Miller, Talin V Yacoubian, Christensen Miller Fink Jacobs Glaser Weil & Shapiro, Los Angeles, CA, for plaintiffs.

Kelli L Sager, Alonzo B Wickers, IV, Davis Wright Tremaine, Los Angeles, CA, Victor A Kovner, Elizabeth A McNamara, Carolyn K Foley, Anke E Steinecke, Davis Wright Tremaine, New York City, for defendants.

ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

PHILLIPS, District Judge.

Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment came before the Court for hearing on April 17, 2000. After reviewing and considering the materials filed by the parties and the arguments of counsel in support of and in opposition to the Motion, the Court rules that Defendants' Motion is GRANTED.

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Parties

D.A.R.E. ("Drug Abuse Resistance Education") is a non-profit corporation founded in 1983 as a cooperative effort of the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Unified School District. Its mission is to provide in-class drug education, as well as to establish "positive relationships" between law enforcement and the community, particularly with parents, teachers and students. [Second Amended Complaint ("SAC") at 3.] Glenn Levant is the organization's President and Founding Director. [SAC at 3.] Rolling Stone magazine is a journal of popular music and culture, including politics and social issues. Jann Wenner is its publisher and editor; Robert Love is its managing editor. [SAC at 4.]

B. Rolling Stone Contacts Stephen Glass

In the spring of 1997, Love contacted Stephen Glass, a journalist then working for The New Republic magazine, about the possibility of writing for Rolling Stone. [Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment ("Defs.' Mot.Summ.J.") at 4; Plaintiffs' Opposition ("Pls.' Opp'n") at 7.] The New Republic had recently published an article by Glass entitled "Don't You D.A.R.E.," which was critical of the D.A.R.E. program and Levant. That article prompted two angry responses from Levant, which were published in the April 7, 1997 and August 4, 1997 issues of The New Republic, and charged that Glass's article was unfairly slanted and contained false and defamatory statements. [Pls.' Opp'n at 7.]

Glass agreed to write an article for Rolling Stone based on "Don't You D.A.R.E.," but first prepared a piece on the U.S. News and World Report college ranking issue, which was published in Rolling Stone's October 17, 1997 issue after "proceeding through the editorial and fact-checking process without incident." [Defs.' Mot.Summ.J. at 4.]

C. Glass Authors "Truth and D.A.R.E."

Several months later, Glass told Love that Levant was publishing a new book entitled Keeping Kids Drug Free. This provided the impetus for publication of Glass's D.A.R.E. story for Rolling Stone. [Defs.' Mot.Summ.J. at 5; Pls.' Opp'n at 8.]

Glass's article, "Truth and D.A.R.E.," described the D.A.R.E. program and Levant's new book. It then examined research suggesting that the program's methods are ineffective, and queried why such research had not adversely affected the program's growth and influence. [Defs.' Mot.Summ.J. at 5; Pls.' Opp'n. at 9.] The article described D.A.R.E.'s efforts to "silence" or "suppress" a study of the program commissioned by the National Institute of Justice ("NIJ") and conducted by researchers at the Research Triangle Institute ("RTI"). [Defs.' Mot.Summ.J. at 5.] The article also discussed efforts to influence NBC not to produce an installment of its "Dateline: NBC" program critical of D.A.R.E., and described three instances when D.A.R.E.'s supporters attempted to "punish" researchers by false accusations of drug use, tire slashing, and threatening telephone calls. [Defs.' Mot. Summ.J. at 6; Pls.' Opp'n at 9-10.]

With the exception of Glass's description of Levant's new book, the material in "Truth and D.A.R.E." had been previously published, and in many respects was a shorter version of the 1997 New Republic article. [Defs.' Mot.Summ.J. at 6; Pls.' Opp'n at 8.]

Before Rolling Stone published "Truth and D.A.R.E.," the article was subjected to review by the magazine's Research Department. [Defs.' Mot.Summ.J. at 6; Pls.' Opp'n. at 10.] Gina Zucker devoted one full work week to fact-checking the article; she referred to articles in the magazines Reason and Sociological Focus, as well as a piece from USA Today, to corroborate some of Glass's assertions. [Defs.' Mot. Summ.J. at 8.] Zucker reviewed Glass's documentary sources for accuracy and spoke with several of Glass's individual sources to confirm the information they had given him. [Defs.' Mot.Summ.J. at 8-9.] To corroborate the quotes and descriptions of incidents Glass obtained from confidential sources, Zucker relied on Glass's handwritten notes and requested that he contact some of these sources again to verify further the accuracy of their representations. [Defs.' Mot. Summ.J. at 9; Pls.' Opp'n at 10-11.]

"Truth and D.A.R.E." appeared in the March 5, 1998 issue of Rolling Stone. [Defs.' Mot.Summ.J. at 1.]

D. Fabrications In Glass's Work Revealed

On May 11, 1998, The Washington Post reported that Glass had fabricated portions of "Don't You D.A.R.E." [SAC at 9; Defs.' Mot.Summ.J. at 10; Pls.' Opp'n at 12.] The New Republic fired Glass, and it was soon learned that he had systematically fabricated and embellished portions of his published work. [Defs.' Mot.Summ.J. at 10; Pls.' Opp'n at 12.]

At Love's direction, Perry Van der Meer, an assistant managing editor at Rolling Stone, investigated each article Glass wrote for the magazine and hired an independent fact-checker to assist in this effort. [Defs.' Mot.Summ.J. at 11; Pls.' Opp'n at 13.] Rolling Stone concluded that "Truth and D.A.R.E." contained false quotations and fabrications. [Defs.' Mot. Summ.J. at 11.]

In its July 9-23, 1998 double issue, Rolling Stone published a letter from Levant complaining about "Truth and D.A.R.E." It also printed an Editor's Note stating that the magazine was investigating all articles Glass had written, and intended to re-check Glass's sources. The Note stated, "[t]o date, however, we have found nothing to contradict the essence of this piece." [Defs.' Mot.Summ.J. at 11; Pls.' Opp'n at 13.]

In its August 6, 1998 issue, Rolling Stone reported the findings of its inquiry in a second Editor's Note, modeled after a similar note that appeared in The New Republic's June 30, 1998 issue. This second Note stated the magazine's conclusion that Glass had included false quotations and fabrications in both articles he wrote for Rolling Stone, including "Truth and D.A.R.E." [Defs.' Mot.Summ.J. at 11; Pls.' Opp'n. at 15.]

II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

A. Plaintiffs' Complaint

On February 2, 1999, Plaintiffs D.A.R.E. America and Levant filed suit in diversity against Defendants Rolling Stone magazine (whose legal name is Straight Arrow Publishers Co., LP), Wenner, and Love. Plaintiffs amended their complaint twice. The Second Amended Complaint states three claims for defamation under California law, based on publication of "Truth and D.A.R.E." and the two Editor's Notes. [SAC at 10, 12, 13.]

Plaintiffs allege that "Truth and D.A.R.E." contained eight "specific defamatory" fabrications charging "that D.A.R.E. and Levant operate as a criminal enterprise by engaging in acts of coercion, intimidation, and suppression, and by making threats and causing physical harm" to its detractors. [SAC at 1-2, 7.] Plaintiffs allege that Defendants published "Truth and D.A.R.E." despite their awareness of Plaintiffs' objections to Glass's 1997 article in The New Republic.

Plaintiffs attack the following statements from "Truth and D.A.R.E.":

1. "But what's even more disturbing is that the organization, its supporters and the crusading ex-cop who leads it have tried to silence critics, suppress scientific research and punish nonbelievers."

2. "Academics and parents' groups say Levant's D.A.R.E. uses strong-arm tactics to suppress damaging research. They accuse D.A.R.E. supporters of wielding political pressure, slashing scientists' tires, making threatening phone calls in the middle of the night, harassing critics' children and even of jamming the television transmission of a news report to hush criticism."

3. "D.A.R.E. and its advocates have become so well known for playing hardball with critics that drug researchers and journalists have developed a vocabulary for the events. Anyone who has been silenced, they say, has been `D.A.R.E.'d.'"

4. "`Everything was going along just fine,' explains a researcher who worked on the RTI analysis and who asked that his name not be used so he wouldn't get any more `nasty, screeching phone calls' in the middle of the night. `That is, until we started finding out that D.A.R.E. just simply didn't work. Then all hell broke loose.'"

5. "One person close to the research added: `For the first time I can remember, we were scared to publish a study'. D.A.R.E. tried to scare out science."

6. "At an Illinois college a professor who criticized the program was accused by D.A.R.E. supporters of trying to sell drugs to campus students. Although a department investigation cleared him of all wrongdoing, the professor says he will never look into the program again."

7. "Likewise, a California professor says his department chairman won't let him study D.A.R.E. anymore, because local D.A.R.E. officials have written letters to grants organizations saying the professor's department supports drug use."

8. "And a New York Graduate student says that she changed her sociology dissertation — after two and a half years of work — when D.A.R.E. supporters threw a...