FRESNO, Calif. -- Attorneys for newspaper columnist Jack Anderson are seeking dismissal of the Synanon organization's defamation suit against him.
Anderson published a column in March of last year that said NBC television dropped a planned special on the Peoples Temple after another documentary on Synanon provoked a barrage of threatening letters.
Anderson speculated that if NBC had run the show on the Peoples Temple, it might have averted the Jonestown tragedy in which more than 900 people died in a mass murder-suicide ritual ordered by cult leader the Rev. Jim Jones.
Bruce Sanford, representing United Features Syndicate, which distributes the Anderson column to over 900 newspapers, asked Tuesday that the suit be dismissed, denying that Synanon had been defamed.
Sanford contended the information contained in the column was true and that Anderson noted specifically in the column 'whether the tragedy at Jonestown would in fact have been prevented if NBC had exposed the Peoples Temple is, of course, impossible to say.'
Three Synanon attorneys filed numerous discovery motions alleging Anderson's attorneys had 'contemptuously' blocked their efforts to find out Anderson's motivations in running the column and the editorial control United Features Syndicate exercised over Anderson's articles.
Synanon attorney David Benjamin said queries of newspaper readers clearly showed they felt the Anderson column implied that Synanon, now based at Badger in Tulare County, Calif., had been responsible for the Jonestown tragedy. Benjamin said Synanon business enterprises had suffered as a result.
Attorney Alf Brandon, representing the columnist, responded that the Synanon attorneys were on a 'fishing expedition.' Brandon asked for a stay on the discovery motions pending a ruling on the motion for summary judgment to dismiss the case.
The Synanon attorneys also asked U.S. Magistrate Alan Christensen to throw out a Columbia Journalism Review article submitted by the Anderson attorneys that said Synanon was waging a legal battle against the news media by continually filing suits.
Christensen took the motions from both sides under advisement.
