HBO Faces Huge Defamation Trial Over "Hoax" Child Labor Report
APRIL 03, 2015 Eriq Gardner
"Now HBO is bracing for a trial that could deliver one of the biggest black eyes to a national broadcaster's news operation in quite some time. On April 13, the Time Warner subsidiary is set to answer
claims that in 2008, Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel featured a report titled “Children of Industry” that was a “hoax,” full of scenes that in the words of one HBO stringer, were "fabricated" or "dramatized."
[FONT="]The plaintiff in the case is Mitre Sports International, whichmanufactures and sells sporting equipment and is objecting to HBO’s depictionof young children in India hand-stitching Mitre-branded soccer balls forpennies or less in order to pay off their parents’ debts. According to Mitre,it has interviewed the children shown and they have admitted that they werepaid by producers to pretend to be child laborers.
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Now, in the weeks preceding trial, HBO has been working furiously to quash a trial subpoena of HBO chairman and CEO Richard Plepler and limit the fallout of a public spectacle that could introduce evidence that HBO employees lied on visa applications to get into India, looked the other way when one of its researchers warned about showing abused kids at the hands of a corporate master, “doctored” interviews with a child labor expert and U.S. government official, and set up a phony “cross talk” between Gumbel and correspondent Bernard Goldberg (a frequent media critic on Fox News) who “had never watched the show seen by viewers.”
Theytalked to Kailash Satyarthi, a Nobel Peace Prizenominee who is an expert in child labor, and focused on the Indian cities ofMeerut and Jalandhar. When traveling to several villages in the Meerut area,they personally saw children stitching soccer balls to pay off family debts.They also report being shown Mitre-branded soccer balls.
[FONT="]For instance, the program shows one 12-year-old “orphan who liveswith her grandparents” and is portrayed as “a full-time soccer ball stitcher.”In Goldberg’s interview with the Nobel Peace Prize nominated expert in childlabor, he mentions the girl’s name, saying she “is making a ball for Mitre, oneof the biggest soccer brands in the world, the preferred brand of the pros.”
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[FONT="]Afterbeing deposed, this same young girl testified that her guardians are actuallygainfully employed and was induced to pretend to stitch a Mitre ball with thepromise of money.
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[FONT="]No matter how the trial turns out, the HBO segment will indeed beimportant — perhaps even a media milestone.[/FONT]
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[FONT="]Constantinehopes so. “If a jury gets to see what was done here by HBO, a jury wouldcertainly be within its rights to award punitive damages,” he says. “If thathas some teaching effect on HBO or other news organizations, then so be it.”
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HBO Faces Huge Defamation Trial Over "Hoax" Child Labor Report - The Hollywood Reporter[FONT="][/FONT]
APRIL 03, 2015 Eriq Gardner
"Now HBO is bracing for a trial that could deliver one of the biggest black eyes to a national broadcaster's news operation in quite some time. On April 13, the Time Warner subsidiary is set to answer
claims that in 2008, Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel featured a report titled “Children of Industry” that was a “hoax,” full of scenes that in the words of one HBO stringer, were "fabricated" or "dramatized."
[FONT="]The plaintiff in the case is Mitre Sports International, whichmanufactures and sells sporting equipment and is objecting to HBO’s depictionof young children in India hand-stitching Mitre-branded soccer balls forpennies or less in order to pay off their parents’ debts. According to Mitre,it has interviewed the children shown and they have admitted that they werepaid by producers to pretend to be child laborers.
[/FONT]
Now, in the weeks preceding trial, HBO has been working furiously to quash a trial subpoena of HBO chairman and CEO Richard Plepler and limit the fallout of a public spectacle that could introduce evidence that HBO employees lied on visa applications to get into India, looked the other way when one of its researchers warned about showing abused kids at the hands of a corporate master, “doctored” interviews with a child labor expert and U.S. government official, and set up a phony “cross talk” between Gumbel and correspondent Bernard Goldberg (a frequent media critic on Fox News) who “had never watched the show seen by viewers.”
Theytalked to Kailash Satyarthi, a Nobel Peace Prizenominee who is an expert in child labor, and focused on the Indian cities ofMeerut and Jalandhar. When traveling to several villages in the Meerut area,they personally saw children stitching soccer balls to pay off family debts.They also report being shown Mitre-branded soccer balls.
[FONT="]For instance, the program shows one 12-year-old “orphan who liveswith her grandparents” and is portrayed as “a full-time soccer ball stitcher.”In Goldberg’s interview with the Nobel Peace Prize nominated expert in childlabor, he mentions the girl’s name, saying she “is making a ball for Mitre, oneof the biggest soccer brands in the world, the preferred brand of the pros.”
[/FONT][FONT="][/FONT]
[FONT="][/FONT][FONT="][/FONT]
[FONT="]Afterbeing deposed, this same young girl testified that her guardians are actuallygainfully employed and was induced to pretend to stitch a Mitre ball with thepromise of money.
[/FONT]
[FONT="]No matter how the trial turns out, the HBO segment will indeed beimportant — perhaps even a media milestone.[/FONT]
[FONT="][/FONT]
[FONT="]Constantinehopes so. “If a jury gets to see what was done here by HBO, a jury wouldcertainly be within its rights to award punitive damages,” he says. “If thathas some teaching effect on HBO or other news organizations, then so be it.”
[/FONT]
HBO Faces Huge Defamation Trial Over "Hoax" Child Labor Report - The Hollywood Reporter[FONT="][/FONT]
