A former Chicago TV news reporter who was videotaped in a bikini at the home of a source can sue CBS for defaming her by suggesting in statements voiced over the footage that she was using “bikini journalism” to seduce the source, a judge has ruled.

Amy Jacobson had been covering the disappearance of Craig Stebic's wife for NBC's Chicago affiliate and went to his home July 6, 2007 in the hope of getting an interview with him. She lost her job after the rival CBS-2 station aired the surreptitiously recorded footage of her in a segment entitled “Bikini Clad Reporter Filmed at Home of Missing Mom.”

Jacobson swam in the backyard pool with her children and the footage showed her in a halter swim top with a towel wrapped around her waist as she stood behind a glass door talking on the phone.

The CBS reporter narrating the story said she was “in hot water over her technique in pursuing a source,” had visited the home “frequently” and had “never mentioned her social relationship with Stebic and his family.” A journalism professor who was interviewed for the story questioned Jacobson's professional ethics.

In denying CBS' motion to dismiss, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Elizabeth M. Budzinski said the comments of Professor Michelle Weldon were “clearly” protected expressions of opinion but “the manner in which CBS edited, presented and narrated over the video footage of Jacobson is a valid basis for Jacobson's defamation claims against CBS.”

The narrator's statements about Jacobson's activities at the Stebic home, she continued in a Feb. 17 opinion,

were made in a specific factual context -- Jacobson being present at a missing person's home with the missing person's husband while wearing a bikini and towel -- and had a precise and readily understood meaning -- that Jacobson was engaging in improper conduct.

Jacobson, who also sued on behalf of her husband and children, alleged in her complaint that the “videotape was carefully edited in an attempt to create the appearance of an 'illicit' relationship” between her and Stebic. The story, she said, has ruined her career, with one TV station executive telling her she is “toxic” in the industry.

Tracy Reardon, a neighbor of Stebic's with whom he was feuding, allegedly shot the footage from the second floor of her home and then passed it on to CBS-2. Jacobson had her children with her and was on her way to take them swimming at a health club when she received a call from Stebic's sister inviting her to come over.

“Plaintiff was serving in the dual capacity of mother and reporter while at the Stebic home,” the complaint says.

 

CBS won a partial victory as Budzinski dismissed an invasion of privacy claim because Jacobson "failed to allege damages which resulted from the alleged intrusion, which was Reardon's alleged taping of Plaintiffs' activities inside the Stebic backyard. Plaintiffs' only damages are based on the publication of the video."

By Matthew Heller
2/21/09