Hi Revealer,

You may remember that a little over a year ago, we told you about a libel lawsuit we were embroiled in, brought by an international aid group we had reported on called Planet Aid. I couldn’t be more excited to tell you the news: After more than four years of fighting this multimillion-dollar libel lawsuit, we were handed a decisive victory by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California! In a lengthy order, a federal judge dismissed the entire case with prejudice.

Reveal’s 2016 investigation into Planet Aid, which received U.S. government funds for aid programs in impoverished areas of southern Africa, tied the charity to an alleged cult and raised significant questions about whether the funds from the U.S. and other governments actually were reaching the people they were intended to help. 
 
Several months after the initial stories were published, Planet Aid filed a vexatious libel lawsuit against Reveal in federal court, and we’ve been fighting it for four loooong years. Our in-house general counsel, D. Victoria Baranetsky, worked tirelessly to manage this complex case with our generous pro bono representation from attorneys at Davis Wright Tremaine and Covington & Burling.
 
Thank you to Vickie, our pro bono attorneys and all of you for supporting us through the twists and turns of this journey. If you’d like to learn more about the libel lawsuit, check out our article today.

Thank you!

Missa Perron
Membership Manager
Reveal