CNN19980226.2130.0304 NEWS CAPTION oprah winfrey is wearing a grin this evening, and with good reason. a jury in amarillo, texas, has rejected the claim of texas cattle ranchers that winfrey and her talk show disparaged the american beef industry. the ranchers say the case served to send a message that beef is safe and to put talk shows on notice to be responsible for what they air. they say they lost on a technicality. winfrey says the verdict proves, "free speech not only lives, it rocks." i will continue to use my voice. i believed from the beginning this was an attempt to muzzle that voice. and i come from a people who have struggled and died in order to have a voice in this country, and i refuse to be muzzled, and that's why i was here every day. and i just want to thank everybody who supported that idea and the idea of free speech. we talked to a number of jurors. what they told us was they thought the statements were false and disparaging. there's a requirement under the business disparagement torque that it be of and concerning the plaintiffs. and since the speakers on the show did not mention paul engler and his company, cactus feeders, directly, that they had a hard time getting over the "of and concerning" part of it. that's the only thing that hung that jury up against us. the ranchers argued comments about mad cow disease made during an april 1996 oprah winfrey show caused u.s. beef prices to fall to ten-year lows. the ranchers were suing winfrey, her production company and a guest on the show for $11 million.