Reply #11: Correct -

[Crabby Appleton]

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/lazarus/20050526.html

"Once exonerated, Jewell sued a bunch of his accusers and achieved some substantial settlements. NBC paid him more than $500,000 to settle a suit stemming from comments by news anchor Tom Brokaw that suggested that the FBI must have had significant evidence against Jewell, given that it had named him.

The lesson the police and press gleaned from the Jewell debacle, however, was not the right one. They should have learned that prematurely naming suspects is a really bad idea - as is suggesting that suspects must have been named because there's strong evidence against them.

But what the police and press learned, instead, was simply that using the loaded term "suspect" opens the door to potential legal liability.

Thus, a euphemism was born. After all, calling someone a "person of interest" doesn't suggest official suspicion or evidence of guilt. Wink; wink."