Aisenson

In 1984, appellant David J. Aisenson filed a lawsuit for slander and invasion of privacy against respondents American Broadcasting Company, Inc., its Los Angeles affiliate KABC-TV, and four KABC-TV employees (collectively, ABC). The lawsuit arose from ABC’s broadcast of a series of television news special reports discussing the results of an opinion poll it had conducted. The poll elicited local attorneys’ opinions on the performance of Los Angeles Superior Court criminal law judges. ABC reported that appellant, then a superior court judge, had received the lowest ratings of all the judges in the poll.

Appellant alleged that the comments aired on KABC-TV falsely implied that he was an incompetent judge and a “bad guy,” that he refused to be interviewed, and that he attempted to suppress the broadcast of ABC’s report. These comments, in their entirety, are as follows : Broadcast of October 25, 1983: “. . . The man stepping out of his home is His Honor Judge David Aisenson, the lowest ranking judge of them all. On a one to ten scale, Judge David Aisenson got an overall average score in the four’s. Judge Aisenson refused to show himself to you in an interview about the…