Although LSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey says she has a plan in place to sue The Washington Post for an upcoming article about her, one former print journalist turned digital sports juggernaut says she’s in for a rude awakening. Dan Le Batard, a former Miami Herald columnist and current host of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz, says Mulkey won’t have a chance to do so.
On the Monday, Mar. 25 edition of the Le Batard Show, Dan discusses the recent Kim Mulkey controversy and how the LSU women’s basketball coach doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on in terms of suing The Washington Post. For the uninitiated, Mulkey made headlines over the weekend after addressing a yet-to-be-published piece by The Washington Post. While the contents of this mysterious article are unknown, they must be salacious enough for Mulkey to get out in front of it and issue a statement condemning the piece.
“I’ve hired the best defamation law firm in the country and I will sue The Washington Post if they publish a false story about me,” Mulkey said via Yahoo. “Not many people are in a position to hold these kind of journalists accountable, but I am, and I’ll do it.”
However, Le Batard says otherwise. “This story will be fair and vetted, and when it comes out, she will not be able to sue them,” Le Batard said. “She will threaten to sue them. She will make a lot of noise around suing them, but I assure you that the best lawyers in journalism for the Washington Post will make it so that the story is unassailable – ethically and legally.”
Le Batard has been very opinionated on the current state of journalism. He lamented that sports media would never, “make another Peter King” after the former MMQB columnist retired earlier, taking his credibility built upon decades of print journalism with him. He also commented on the line blurring between sports journalism and sports betting companies thanks to ESPN Bet, although these comments were met with a riposte from his co-hosts who were quick to point out his company is funded by DraftKings Sportsbook.
However, Le Batard knows that while this story will have a tall hill to climb in the world of public opinion, Kim Mulkey should be afraid of what’s coming her way.
“These things are not done carelessly,” Le Batard said. “The responses, though, that undercut them are allowed to be done carelessly and often win because people just don’t care how meticulous journalists have to be about writing something that Kim Mulkey is afraid of and should be afraid of.”
