Libel Win Pit Newspaper Against Newspaper

Always good news when a newspaper beats a libel lawsuit, but in an ironic twist to a Texas case decided last week, the victorious newspaper was defending itself against a plaintiff that was also a newspaper. As Tex Parte Blog reports, the Sept. 20 ruling from the state's 8th Court of Appeals was a victory for Belo Corp., publisher of The Dallas Morning News. The suit had been brought by the Mexican company Publicaciones Paso Del Norte, publisher of El Diario, after the Dallas paper ran an article suggesting that the Mexican paper may have soft-peddled its reporting of the murders of some 400 women in Juarez, Mexico. The appeals court concluded that there was "less than a scintilla of evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact concerning actual malice" and entered summary judgment dismissing the case.