Sam Zell, the crazy old man who bought some newspapers recently, is a champion of free speech, which is why he swears so much. So it's odd that he is suing some lady for defamation, right? Especially because the lady is not associated with us, and we have called him all sorts of things! Oh, the lady is Dianne Jacob, who represents the Second District on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. Sam Zell also owns a trailer park company that has four parks in her district. Recently, they started raising rents. Dianne Jacob said some very mildly defamatory things about them!

Ms. Jacob learned that Zell's Manufacured Home Communities (which is now called "Equity Lifestyle Properties, Inc.") has a history of suing cities to make them repeal rent control laws and also they enjoy "running people out of older mobile home parks," just for the kicks. So she said as much, and then they sued her for defamation, and they lost, but now they're appealing, even though their case seems pretty thin.

So now she's writing an editorial about it. She submitted it to the Zell-owned L.A. Times, but they rejected it for some reason!

All we have to say is listen up, old people—you can whine about that 25% rent hike but you're subsidizing quality journalism. If you want to save the newspaper industry and keep that DC bureau open, you're gonna have to suck it up. It's the patriotic thing to do.

I Won't Be Sued Into Silence [Voice of San Diego]