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Mark Fainaru-Wada
A Mississippi judge dismissed a lawsuit Friday against a non-profit news outlet over its Pulitzer Prize-winning stories about a welfare-fraud scandal headlined by former NFL star Brett Favre.
The lawsuit had been filed nearly two years ago by former Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant.
A ruling against the paper could have forced Wolfe and Mississippi Today either to turn over confidential sources or face contempt of court charges that would result in significant fines to the website or perhaps even jail for reporter Anna Wolfe and her boss, editor-in-chief Adam Ganucheau.
But on Friday, Madison County Circuit Court Judge Bradley Mills dismissed Bryant’s lawsuit.
In a statement, Mississippi Today attorney Lee Crain celebrated the dismissal of Bryant’s “baseless defamation lawsuit” and called Wolfe’s stories “exactly the type of reporting the First Amendment was intended to protect.” Crain said the ruling “ends once and for all Governor Bryant’s unconstitutional crusade against Mississippi’s free press.”
However, Billy Quinn, an attorney for Bryant, said the case “will likely end up on appeal before the Mississippi Supreme Court. … This matter is far from over. Governor Bryant remains confident in the legal basis and righteousness of his case.”
The case grew out of a five-part series published in April 2022 called “The Backchannel,” in which Mississippi Today detailed a $77 million welfare fraud scandal in the nation’s second-poorest state. The stories described how, with then-Governor Bryant in office, Favre and a handful of others scored millions of dollars that were supposed to go to welfare families but were instead used on projects that included a college volleyball facility and a concussion drug company.
Soon after Wolfe was awarded the Pulitzer, journalism’s highest honor, Bryant filed a defamation suit, shifting the focus from stories about poverty to a First Amendment battle.
The stories, which never quoted an anonymous source and were based largely on material gleaned from email and texts involving public officials, “uncovered the depth of the former governor’s involvement within a sprawling welfare scandal that plagued his administration,” Mississippi Today wrote at the time.
Bryant and Favre both have said they were unaware the money was designated for welfare families.
“The reporting speaks for itself. The truth speaks for itself,” Mississippi Today said in its story responding to Friday’s ruling.
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