Porn Star Sues For Being Paired With HIV Story

When the Daily Mail ran a 2013 story with the headline, “Porn industry shuts down with immediate effect after ‘female performer’ tests positive for HIV,” it ran a photo of actress Dani Ashe alongside the story, though Ashe was not the performer in question. Ashe, whose legal name is Leah Manzari, has sued for defamation. “A picture is worth a thousand words,” Ninth Circuit judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote in her opinion this week, allowing Manzari’s suit for defamation to continue. “A photograph, especially when coupled with text, can convey a powerful message: in this case, a potentially damaging one.” The Daily Mail said its photo desk was asked to supply a stock image to accompany the article that was “representative of the pornographic film industry that … contained no nudity.” But, McKeown wrote, “This disingenuous approach overlooks the fact that a photograph itself can convey both an implicit and an explicit message and that the headline, caption, and photograph taken together are also a statement.”