Oprah Headmistress to Drop Suit Against Huffpo

Arianna Huffington and Oprah Winfrey will soon be co-defendants no longer.

Huffington's news site, the Huffington Post, was accused of defamation last year after a blogger named Joan Stewart posted an unsubstantiated claim that the headmistress of Winfrey's girls' school in South Africa, Nomvuyo Mzamane, had been charged in connection with allegations of physical and sexual abuse at the school. Mzamane also sued Winfrey, saying the TV host had falsely harmed her reputation.

But at Columbia J-School's Consumer Revolution on the Web conference today, Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, revealed that Mzamane has tentatively agreed to withdraw her claims against the Huffington Post and Stewart.* Cox's group assists bloggers in defending themselves against lawsuits, among other things.

Contacted by phone, Stewart, who blogs at PublicityHound.net, confirmed that a deal is at hand. Asked whether she had agreed to any conditions as part of the settlement, she said, "Yes, but I don't know if I can discuss them with you," and promised to call back after speaking with her attorney. The post that brought on the lawsuit was her only contribution to Huffpo.

*Corrective update, 11/21/08: The original version of this post inaccurately made it sound as though the settlement were already a done deal. It's not. "There is an agreement to what the settlement would look like, it's been sent around to everybody for review, and once everybody signs it the suit will be dropped," says Cox. "But we're not there yet."