Salvo v. Ottaway Newspapers, Inc.

Reading between the lines of a Salem Evening News article, the motion judge concluded that possibly defamatory inferences might be drawn from the facts reported and, so, denied summary judgment for the media defendant in a defamation action brought by the plaintiff, S. Steve Salvo.1 Salvo, a former city councillor and brother of a former mayor of Salem, claimed that the newspaper defamed him in its article regarding his family’s plans to build two houses on undeveloped *256waterfront property by suggesting that he had improperly used political influence in an earlier waterfront land transaction.…