The Al Jazeera story about PED use in sports has resurfaced in recent days, thanks to the lingering defamation litigation filed by Ryan Zimmerman and Ryan Howard, two baseball players implicated in the documentary. And the effort by Al Jazeera to avoid liability has pulled Peyton Manning’s name into the case.
More specifically, the effort by Al Jazeera to avoid liability has pulled Peyton Manning’s lawyer into the case.
Manning originally was implicated by former Guyer Institute intern Charlie Sly, who was recorded without his knowledge making allegations about athlete PED use. Although the law establishes a much higher standard for defaming public figures like Zimmerman, Howard, and Peyton Manning, Al Jazeera still must be able to prove that it acted without knowledge that Sly’s claims were false and without reckless disregard as to the truth or falsity of Sly’s claims.
Enter Manning’s lawyer, who provided during an in-person meeting a point-by-point refutation of the specific allegations that Al Jazeera had planned to make about Peyton Manning. As explained in a December 4, 2015 email message sent by Al Jazeera to Manning’s agent, Tom Condon, Sly’s comments included a claim that Peyton Manning bought HGH from the Guyer Institute, that he spent up to $20,000 per month on HGH and used up to 20 IU’s of it a day, and that excessive use of HGH resulted in “bone development” in Peyton Manning’s forehead.
After meeting with attorney Matthew D. McGill, a partner with the law firm of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, Al Jazeera DROPPED those allegations from the documentary, apparently because Al Jazeera had become convinced by McGill that Sly was not making credible claims about Peyton Manning. Al Jazeera claims that McGill became a “second source” who “confirmed much of what Sly had said.”
McGill has responded to this contention, in an email sent Sunday to PFT.
“What Al Jazeera is saying is outrageous, baseless, and wrong,” McGill said. “When Al Jazeera raised these false allegations about Peyton two and a half years ago, we went to their lawyers in good faith and explained that their source was a pharmacy intern who had unlawfully compromised private medical information to make up false and outrageous allegations about Peyton. We gave them very specific facts showing that every allegation about Peyton was a lie. Any notion that we confirmed Sly’s veracity as a source is obviously false and beneath contempt.”
The information from McGill surely had an impact on Al Jazeera. Beyond abandoning the specific contentions regarding Peyton Manning, Al Jazeera reporter Deborah Davies emphasized in a December 2015 interview on Today that the Al Jazeera documentary was making no claims about Peyton Manning.
“The only allegation in the program from Charlie Sly is that growth hormone was sent repeatedly from the Guyer [Institute] to Ashley Manning in Florida,” Davies said at the time. “We’re not making the allegation against Peyton Manning. . . . Let’s make it clear what the allegation is. The allegation in the program is very simple, that when Charlie Sly worked in the Guyer [Institute] doing part of his training . . . the clinic was sending out not one shipment but repeated shipments of growth hormone to Ashley Manning in Florida. That’s it.”
Now, Al Jazeera still hopes to bolster Sly’s credibility as it relates to the things he said about Zimmerman and Howard, claiming that McGill “confirmed much” of Sly’s allegations about Peyton Manning.
It’s accurate, but only if by “confirmed” Al Jazeera means “debunked.” While Al Jazeera did indeed use the allegation that HGH was shipped to Ashley Manning after meeting with McGill, McGill sufficiently shot down Sly’s allegations about Peyton Manning to get Al Jazeera to remove them from the documentary.
The end result arguably makes things worse, not better, for Al Jazeera. In using McGill’s comments as the basis for showing that Al Jazeera did not act with knowledge of the falsity of Sly’s claims, Al Jazeera opens itself up to the very simple notion that McGill’s explanation should have prompted Al Jazeera to ask itself whether, if Sly was making inaccurate claims about Peyton Manning, Sly was making inaccurate claims about Zimmerman and Howard, too?
