A judge has determined that a written assault on a young football fan wearing facepaint in honor of his team and his heritage by Deadspin, in the words of a column on its pages, is actionable.
A report from the Associated Press said the judge found the “image of a child displaying his passionate fandom as a backdrop for its critique of the NFL’s diversity efforts and, in its description of the child,” actually crossed the line of protected speech.
“Having reviewed the complaint, the court concludes that Deadspin’s statements accusing H.A. of wearing black face and Native headdress ‘to hate black people and the Native American at the same time,’ and that he was taught this hatred by his parents, are provable false assertions of fact and are therefore actionable.”
The decision is from Delaware Superior Court Judge Sean Lugg, who rejected Deadspin’s demand that the lawsuit by the family of the child be dismissed.
The publication had argued its blast at the child was “opinion.”
Case was brought by Californians Raul Armenta Jr. and his wife, Shannon, on behalf of their son, Holden, 9.
He wore the costume at a game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Las Vegas Raiders last November.
The court documents explained that Holden’s family heritage is Chumash-Indian, and he wore his face painted half black and half red at the game.
But Deadspin used an image of the boy showing only the black side, and writer Carron Phillips said, “The NFL needs to speak out against the Kansas City Chiefs fan in Black face, Native headdress. They’re doubling up on the racism. Are you going to say anything, Roger Goodell?”
Phillips claimed that the child “found a way to hate black people and the Native American at the same time” and suggested such “hatred” was taught by his parents.
The falsehood of the Deadspin report soon were documented online, but Phillips just doubled down, with, “For the idiots in my mentions who are treating this as some harmless act because the other side of his face was painted red, I could make the argument that it makes it even worse. Y’all are the ones who hate Mexicans but wear sombreros on Cinco.”
The result was threats against the Armentas.
A month after the lawsuit was filed, G/O Media, which owned Deadspin, sold the name to Lineup Publishing and the entire staff was dismissed.
WND reported it took months for a “correction” to appear.
The publication said its “report” was based “upon the available photo” of the child.
“Unfortunately the article drew attention to the fan, though our intended focus was on the NFL and its checkered history on race, an issue which our writer has covered extensively for Deadspin,” it said.
“We regret any suggestion that we were attacking the fan. To that end, our story was updated on Dec. 7 to remove any photos, tweets, links, or otherwise identifying information about the fan. We have also revised the headline to better reflect the substance of the story.”
New photo of the person @Deadspin accused of being a vile racist who wore blackface at a football game.
(They tried to ruin this kid’s life)https://t.co/MEhDaQIIlS pic.twitter.com/5dvud08npf
— Bobby Burack (@burackbobby_) November 27, 2023
