"Skank" as a matter of opinion

Posted at 6:16 AM Jan 07, 2009

By Andrea Grimes

Around the country, no doubt college journalism students are having meaningful and lucid debates this week about the perils of defamation with regard to online media, thanks to a model named Liskula Cohen and some potential skankery. Isn't the internet great?

The skinny (GET IT!?) is this: some tool put up a blog called "Skanks in NYC" through Google's Blogger service, though the blog's copious five posts are all about Liskula and her perceived skankery. On the blog, she's referred to as being horse-faced, a bitch and "psychotic, lying, whoring." Cohen is suing for defamation and attempting to get Google to turn over the identity of the person who owns the blog.

Oh, what folly. Apart from the completely futile nature of the entire endeavor--as if anyone who created that blog used a real name or an email address or could be found via a vague I.P.--defamation suits have to be based in fact. Unless we can prove that skankery is scientifically provable, dear Liskula Cohen is out of luck. Indeed, the only way she can win here is if she really is a skank. Whatever that means.

The Skanks in NYC blog, to which I am not linking because I'm sure interested parties can find it on their own, is in the poorest of taste, but you'd be hard pressed to convince me it's illegal or that Google should turn over the info. Maybe I'm just unsympathetic because nobody's done much for the many, many female bloggers and journalists, including this one, who've been harassed and threatened online, and so being called a "skank" sounds like a walk in the park. Cohen claims her employers and clients are concerned about the blog and says it's affecting her ability to work. But I ask you: when did people with any kind of questionable morals, perceived or actual, have trouble getting work in show business?

[Via MediaPost]