Libel: What's in a Name?

During the years that Drew Pearson's syndicated column "Washington Merry-Go-Round ran in the Fairbanks, Alaska, News-Miner, Pearson's most constant detractor was C.W. (for Charles Willis) Snedden—who happens to be the News-Miner's Publisher. It seemed to Snedden that the columnist never got anything right about Alaska, not even the cost of a gallon of gas in Fairbanks, which Pearson quoted at $1 (actual price at the time: 51¢ to 54¢). Finally Snedden could stand no more. "The garbage man of the fourth estate " his paper sneered in an editorial as it dropped the column

This description joined the...