Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
It's not my usual habit to stand up for that defender of all things right, pure and holy, David Caton.
But the man is being muzzled.
Caton, as I'm sure you know, is the head of the Florida Family Association. For years, he campaigned against Howard Stern's X-rated rantings on an Orlando radio station owned by the ever-responsible media behemoth Clear Channel - the same company that let the dearly departed Bubba thrive in Tampa for so long.
Caton used a tried-and-true method. He went after Stern's advertisers. It worked. Between 1995 and 2001, he persuaded nearly 500 sponsors to cancel, he says.
But a dozen or so others didn't comply. Caton turned up the heat.
He wrote them letters, warning that if they didn't drop advertising on Stern, he would circulate fliers to hundreds of people who owned businesses or homes nearby. The fliers declared the sponsors supported pornography. The fliers even included the home address of whoever owned the company doing the advertising. Anybody so inclined could write a letter, even come knocking, to let the sponsor know just how they felt.
One of the sponsors, a man who owned a Ford dealership, and Clear Channel sued Caton in February 2001. They won in a heartbeat. An Orange County judge issued a temporary injunction against him.
The judge declared that Caton's First Amendment rights were outweighed by those of the businessman and Clear Channel. He ruled that Caton's claims about pornography were false and defamatory; that the fliers put the lives and property of Caton's targets in danger; and that Clear Channel's business relationships were also damaged. He called Caton's actions extortion.
The judge could not have issued a more sweeping ruling. Caton's lawyers told him it meant he couldn't lobby any of Clear Channel's sponsors anyhow, anywhere, about anything. Caton appealed. He lost.
Theoretically, both sides could have continued to argue over whether the temporary injunction could be made permanent. But there was no reason, particularly for Clear Channel, to act. The company had won. Practically speaking, letting the case hang in limbo was the most advantageous thing to do. So very little happened after the appeals court ruled in November 2001.
Then last month, Clear Channel got religion. Facing fat fines over Bubba, the company canned him. It dropped Stern's show from the half-dozen company stations that aired it.
Caton celebrated. On Feb. 26, he went live on MSNBC to talk about Bubba, Stern and Clear Channel. Bingo! The next day, Clear Channel filed new papers in the 3-year-old lawsuit. The company demanded that Caton spell out why he believed Stern was pornographic. The suit was suddenly alive again.
I would tell you why Clear Channel did this, but my calls to company spokesmen and attorneys went unanswered. So I will fill in the blanks with questions.
Doesn't the timing seem weird?
Isn't it strange that a company which suddenly agreed with Caton about Stern still feels threatened by Caton?
And how can a company that gets rich off First Amendment freedoms so blithely deny them to somebody else?
There is a term for Clear Channel's court case against Caton. The legal jargon is "SLAPP suit." The acronym stands for "Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation."
SLAPP suits are meant to shut people up when they try to take action in public controversies. SLAPP suits try to circumvent other pieces of law. Ordinarily, you're not supposed to be able to stop speech - like Caton's flier - even if it's libel, ahead of publication. But you can certainly sue after it's published. And a businessman can sue over actions that he believes damage his business relationships. In either case, you don't normally get injunctions. You get money.
But that didn't happen.
So was this all about squashing David Caton? It sure looks that way.
You'll pardon my smile. Now I get to point out that Clear Channel's action belies the company's ballyhoo about cleaning up its act.
- You can reach Mary Jo Melone at mjmelone@sptimes.com or 813 226-3402.