Coal company files defamation suit against NY Times

New York Times One of the largest coal companies in the U.S. filed a lawsuit against The New York Times claiming the paper falsely stated the energy producer lied about the causes of a mine disaster.

Chris White of The Daily Caller writes, “Murray Energy filed a lawsuit April 5 alleging NYT’s editorial board falsely claimed company CEO Bob Murray lied when he insisted the collapse of his Crandall Canyon mine in 2007 was because of an earthquake, not poor safety measures.

“Data show that an earthquake triggered the collapse, which killed three additional people attempting to rescue the miners, the company wrote in a May 3 statement announcing the lawsuit. It also noted that federal prosecutors were unable to directly connect safety violations to the mine’s collapse.

“Murray Energy’s lawsuit stems from a graph within an April NYT editorial claiming Murray ‘earned infamy when he falsely insisted that the 2007 collapse of his Crandall Canyon mine, which killed six miners, was due to an earthquake, not dodgy mining practices.'”

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.