{"id":116517,"date":"2023-07-31T01:45:20","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T01:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=116517"},"modified":"2023-07-31T01:45:22","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T01:45:22","slug":"former-mississippi-governor-sues-news-site-over-welfare-fraud-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=116517","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Former Mississippi governor sues news site over welfare fraud comments&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/mississippi-welfare-scandal-phil-bryant-lawsuit-6e44e111d01f29d19cf069bb9d8038bb\" target=\"_blank\">AP<\/a>: &#8220;Former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant is suing a local news organization, claiming it defamed him in public comments on the misspending of\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/politics-mississippi-state-government-jobs-and-careers-scandals-79be4e8ed08d119a2b05da9441c5d8ea\" target=\"_blank\">$77 million of federal welfare funds<\/a>\u00a0intended to help some of the poorest people in the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The lawsuit comes just over two months after Mississippi Today and one of its reporters, Anna Wolfe,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/pulitzer-prizes-2023-winners-87abf7c4d71543ba712046e3f0fb4888\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">won a Pulitzer Prize<\/a>&nbsp;for her coverage of the welfare misspending. The news outlet\u2019s story announcing that honor is one example of where the former governor says he was defamed. Bryant\u2019s attorney filed a complaint Wednesday in the Circuit Court of Madison County against the outlet\u2019s CEO, Mary Margaret White, and Deep South Today, the outlet\u2019s nonprofit owner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The lawsuit, which does not appear to challenge the veracity of Mississippi Today\u2019s findings about the welfare scandal, claims White and other employees made \u201cslanderous\u201d or unfounded comments about Bryant when discussing the outlet\u2019s reporting in several public settings.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AP: &#8220;Former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant is suing a local news organization, claiming it defamed him in public comments on the misspending of\u00a0$77 million of federal welfare funds\u00a0intended to help some of the poorest people in the U.S. The lawsuit comes just over two months after Mississippi Today and one of its reporters, Anna Wolfe,&nbsp;won&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsstory"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=116517"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116518,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116517\/revisions\/116518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=116517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=116517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=116517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}