Some updates on the story of Zeke & Mr. Tremblay (see my previous post for background). The court session was held June 21, arguments were made, and now … we wait again till September 7.
- For a good review see: Fagstein: Zeke maintains status quo in court.
- Also interesting, Pierre-Antoine Tremblay has reached out to the blogosphere, here: Michel Leblanc: Affaire Zeke’s Gallery, le point de vue de Tremblay
I’ve had a few discussions with people about this and, there are a few points worth considering:
1. be careful how you phrase things: the case here seems to turn on Zeke suggesting that Pierre-Antoine Tremblay was associated with the mafia, for which I gather there is no evidence. that’s a serious (and dangerous) sort of thing to suggest. my understanding also is that the original post was unclearly written, which is where the problem may be. bad syntax … but just pay attention to your words, you are responsible for them. morally and legally.
2. It’s interesting to note the power of blogs now. As Julien said in his Podcasters Across Borders presentation, you are who Google says you are. And for someone who isn’t online, and doesn’t have some google linkjuice protection, one post from a relatively well-ranked blog might just end up defining who google thinks you are.
3. Mr. Tremblay’s plea to the blogosphere, (linked above) goes like this:
-he’s not rich, just a guy who works in a gallery, is a writer, poet artist [relevant for PR, but not the case]
-he’s sad to see people write nasty things about him (quoting some blogger, not chris) [relevant as proof that some people are jerks, but not the case]
-he’s upset that zeke brings up the lotto quebec forgery case [this is the one that gets my goat: this lotto quebec forgery case is IN THE PUBLIC RECORD … if the charges were all untrue, if the case was settle out of court, it sucks that mr. tremblay got tarred by the story, but Zeke is fully within his rights to say: Mr. Tremblay got taken to court for (allegedly, counsels my lawyer to write) selling forgeries to Lotto Quebec. That it’s a chapter Mr. Tremblay wishes to forget is unfortunate, but it’s still a fact, and you can still read about it at Devoir, Radio-Canada and a Lotto-Quebec press release!
-he’s upset that zeke suggests he was linked to the mafia [for this he would have a legitimate beef, if indeed zeke did so]
-he states that zeke should have contacted him before writing [this is just odd…]
-he states that this has nothing to do with free speech [a bit more on this below …]
so, to me, all the stuff about who zeke is and who tremblay is… is beside the point. The question is, why should Zeke be forced to take down posts that state and link to facts that are in the public record?
The answer of course, is that the court injunction serves as a means to stop any potential “crimes” until such a time as the court can decide (now delayed to September 6). again, i’ll bet that zeke made some wrong moves in the early days … and i’ll bet the whole thing more or less goes away without much impact on you or me.
but it’s not irrelevant, and it is important, and it’s worth paying attention to.
so good luck chris.
A couple of things to consider:
1. Concerning Hand’s allegation about ties to the mafia, what Hand said was that Tremblay was “in business with” Frank Martorana, who’s a convicted mafioso. In reality, it was Martorana’s wife that Tremblay was in business with, managing a Japanese restaurant. It’s technically false, and combined with the implication (that Tremblay was willingly part of the mafia) it gives Tremblay a leg to stand on.
2. One thing you learn quickly in journalism school is that quoting a libellous statement can be itself libellous. Putting quotation marks around a statement doesn’t make you immune from prosecution. Of course, the reason the Loto-Quebec press release is still online after a confidential settlement is a legitimate question to ask. It may be a simple oversight on Loto-Quebec’s part, or it might be there’s something else to the story.