Olympic-Level War of Words in Canada

CANADA
Courthouse News Service

By DARRYL GREER

VANCOUVER, B.C. (CN) – Journalist Laura Robinson has launched a legal counter-attack against John Furlong, former head of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Winter Olympics, in a defamation lawsuit against Furlong and his media handlers.

Robinson faces a defamation lawsuit for a scathing article that claimed Furlong was abusive to students when he was a teacher at a residential Catholic school 1960s and 1970s.

In her new lawsuit in British Columbia Supreme Court, Robinson claims that Furlong went on a media blitz with the help of Twentyten Group Strategic Marketing Communications to discredit her after the article was published in the alt-weekly Georgia Straight newspaper in September 2012.

Robinson claims the defendants published news releases and made statements in media interviews that defamed her by calling her an unethical activist with an ax to grind against male authority figures in sports.

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