Arthur Kent, a Calgary-based broadcast journalist and former candidate for Alberta’s Progressive Conservative party, is suing Calgary Herald columnist Don Martin and the CanWest newspaper chain for defamation over what Kent describes as a “poisonously, rancorously bitter” article Martin wrote about him earlier this year.

Kent says the February 13 column — published in the Herald and the National Post during the provincial election campaign — was unfair, inaccurate and “deeply damaging.” “Most particularly, it curtailed our ability to raise funds,” says Kent, who lost to Liberal MLA and current leadership contender Dave Taylor in the March election.

Kent says he wrote a rebuttal article that the newspapers refused to publish. Herald editor-in-chief Lorne Motley says the paper has filed a statement of defence but wouldn’t comment further. “It’s our policy not to comment on matters that are before the courts,” Motley says.

Kent has won two lawsuits against media companies in the past. In the early ’90s, he successfully sued NBC over a contract dispute. More recently, he sued Universal Studios after the company used his 1980s war video reportage from Afghanistan in its film Charlie Wilson’s War without his permission. In both cases, settlement terms were kept confidential.