“This one is a little quirky because, based on my research, I’m somewhat uncomfortable with the plaintiff, however, it does well to illustrate
how a case can become a P.R. nightmare even before the defendant files an answer.”

That’s a quote from my September 4th post about the Toyota case.  This time it’s not a ‘case’ and the parties are NBC and ALG, but the P.R. nightmare is at hand.

We have two entities arguing over the true content of an email message.  ALG claims the message they received from NBC contains a racial slur while NBC denies it.  There’s no doubt that only one of the versions can be correct.  Regardless of the posturing going on, it’s simple; the message headers and metadata will easily establish whose telling the truth.

If I were a betting man, I’d suspect NBC’s version of the email is correct.  Why?  Because NBC is being quite forceful and citing a forensic examination.  What is ALG doing?  Claiming the message is on an office computer and they can’t get to it to provide message headers until Monday.

This is a classic example of the type of posturing you might see in a real case (in fact, I have seen it), and when it’s revealed which party is lying, somebody’s gonna be in trou-ble!  If it turns out ALG is the culprit, they will have already scored a P.R. hit by claiming that they – a right-wing group – have been slighted by NBC (also known as ‘the devil’ to their followers).  The debate will continue on in cyberspace long after the truth comes out.

My hint?  I’d never heard of ALG and I suspect neither had most people until now.  Remember the adage, “No press is bad press”…