Cambridge, MA City Council Condemns Published Article

Clever changing focus to First Amendment. Issue is whether a Cambridge City Councilor is linked to a terror group. No discussion of that by the Council. Is it true? Councilor Mazen does not deny he is so linked. The City Council ignores the issue, instead attacks a news venue. In 1993 R.W. Apple received an award from the Neiman Foundation at Harvard. I asked Mr Apple, at the event why the "irresponsible" media, his term, often turned out to be accurate in their reporting, while the "responsible" media, e.g., the New York Times was often wrong. The National Enquirer (designated irresponsible) revealed John Edwards impregnated his videographer, while running for President. Like Bill Clinton, Edwards denied it on television. The Cambridge City Council declared Breitbart to be an “illegitimate tabloid.” William Bulger blamed Boston tabloids for circulating rumors about him and his brother, serial killer James "Whitey" Bulger. After name calling is done, is CAIR terror linked or not? The FBI says it is. The British government says it is. Councilor Mazen is silent. Will name calling reveal the truth as it does on the Harvard University campus? Is the matter unacceptable for City Council deliberations?

[From article]
In a resolution passed last month, Cambridge’s City Council publicly denounced the right-wing media organization Breitbart.com for spreading what it called “anti-Muslim libel” after the outlet published an article asserting that a City councillor has ties to the Islamic militant group Hamas.
Breitbart’s November article, entitled “Hamas on the Charles,” claims that City Councillor Nadeem A. Mazen is connected to Hamas through his work as a founding director of the Massachusetts chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy organization.
The council’s December 7 resolution, proposed by Councillor Dennis J. Carlone, characterized Breitbart as an “illegitimate tabloid” that should be disregarded.
“Breitbart.com has a history of outrageous and sensationalized journalism designed for shock value but which has no proven basis in truth whatsoever,” the resolution reads.
[. . .]

Sam Westrop, one of the authors of the Breitbart article, said he does not believe his article is libelous.
“For it to be libel, something would have to be untrue and unfortunately everything we’ve written is true,” said Westrop, who is the research director of Americans for Peace and Tolerance, a group that frequently criticizes Islamist extremism. “This unprecedented attack on media criticism of a public official is highly unusual.”
In response to the December resolution, Breitbart published a second article written by another author titled “War: Cambridge, Massachusetts City Council Censures Breitbart News.” The article claims the resolution is an “affront to the First Amendment” and defends the site’s original story as factual.
Mark V. Tushnet ’67, a Harvard Law School professor specializing in constitutional law, wrote in an email that he “doubt[s] that the city council's resolution could be fairly called even an affront to First Amendment values.” Mazen also said he does not believe the resolution is a “free speech matter”; nor does Westrop, who said “no one has removed the article or stopped us from speaking.”

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/1/7/cambridge-city-council-breitbart/


Cambridge City Council Denounces Right-Wing Media Outlet
By JOSHUA J. FLORENCE and SAMUEL VASQUEZ

Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
January 6, 2016