Posted on 02/29/2016 7:27:33 AM PST by patlin
Forty-seven years ago, the free press became much more free.
In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that journalists may not be sued successfully by public officials for libel unless their news coverage was false, damaged a reputation and was published with "actual malice." That meant establishing that the defamation was published "with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." The Court concluded that such protection was necessary to preserve open debate and discussion about government policy and conduct. Without that protection, the First Amendment guarantee of a free press was largely subject to widely disparate state laws, none of which provided a similar shield against lawsuits.
The 1964 case set the stage for the aggressive investigative reporting to come, including landmark reporting in the Watergate era. It is certainly one of the most important legal decisions in the history of American journalism -- and arguably one of the most settled.
That's why it was interesting to hear Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia bring up the case in a conversation at the Aspen Institute 2011 Washington Ideas Forum at the Newseum last week.
In elaborating on his point that courts should not render decisions that in effect legislate, he said that New York Times Co. v. Sullivan means "you can libel public figures without liability so long as you are relying on some statement from a reliable source, whether it's true or not."
"Now the old libel law used to be (that) you're responsible, you say something false that harms somebody’s reputation, we don't care if it was told to you by nine bishops, you are liable," Scalia continued. "New York Times v. Sullivan just cast that aside because the Court thought in modern society, it'd be a good idea if the press could say a lot of stuff about public figures without having to worry. And that may be correct, that may be right, but if it was right it should have been adopted by the people. It should have been debated in the New York Legislature and the New York Legislature could have said, 'Yes, we're going to change our libel law.' But the living constitutionalists on the Supreme Court, the Warren Court, simply decided, 'Yes, it used to be that ... George Washington could sue somebody that libeled him, but we don't think that's a good idea any more.'"
Scalia was using the case as an illustration, and there's no immediate likelihood that Times v. Sullivan will be overturned. But the justice's comments serve as a reminder that the protections afforded by that decision are not engraved on a monument -- and America's news media can't afford to take them for granted.
‘Consequence free’ - yeah that is generally known among Americans as free speech. Note the word ‘free’ in the phrase. It has a meaning, although you don’t seem to be aware of it.
Like I said, trolls gotta troll.
Yeah, tell it to Linda Tripp, you plutocratic shill.
I find it illustrative that you’re all about the “consequence free” while leaving the “little guy” defenseless to the “false accusation” part.
Hey not so genius, one doesn't have to be a lawyer to know the law, to learn the rules of the court, so to file the proper papers and get the compliant thrown out.
But the number one rule, don't be so stupid as to write something that you cannot back up 100% without the threat of a complaint happening in the first place.
If you can't defend: smear!
Gee, I wonder where you got that idea...?
You need to read your Bible. The Pharisees were exactly the type of people who would have used libel laws against Jesus. They were rule-bound priests who utilized an oral tradition of man-made laws to nitpick Jesus with technically accurate accusations of blasphemy.
And in fact, one of the main accusations the Pharisees made against Jesus before Pilate could almost be said to be in the nature of a libel accusation. Specifically, the Pharisees accused Jesus of claiming to be the 'King of the Jews.' And it was that claim which Pilate based his sentence of crucifixion on. So Jesus was crucified for merely saying things which could not be proven in the way that Pilate expected them to be proven.
In any event, when Jesus was falsely accused of things, his response wasn't to resort to the law like the Pharisees did when they brought him before Pilate. Instead, Jesus' response was to meet words with words. And that is how Jesus dealt with the Pharisees, by arguing against their positions and pointing out to people the hypocrisy of the arguments they were making against him.
I’m not smearing you. You’re a troll.
Have you ever been sued?
So you can dispense with your condescending attitude. If the evidence is on your side, there should be no fear of retribution, no matter what type of complaint, but especially those who use their pen(keyboard) to make their living.
Your opinion on what one should be able to write down and show to other people is the exact antithesis of the what the 1st Amendment stands for. So thanks for proving that you are anti-free speech troll.
Have you ever been sued?
What you fail to bring to the conversation is that suits do not being with the filing of a complaint, they begin with communication between the two parties and when the proper steps are taken between those two parties, as in our case, the other party backed down from filing with the court. I knew & they knew that the law was 100% on our side and they reciprocated appropriately when pressed on it.
Oh, really?
Luk 23:2 And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King.But of course, your defense of slander and lies is in keeping with the best of moral precepts and rectitude....Luk 23:14 Said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him
Then I'm the most successful troll FreeRepublic has ever seen since I've been here and active two years longer than you have.
I’m not telling anyone what to write, what I am saying is, if you write something, you had better be able to back it up 100%. It is called ACCOUNTABILITY! I guess you don’t believe one should be held accountable for their words or actions? Words are weapons, they can do great harm and thus a person should choose their words wisely so not to harm anyone.
Just thought I would share with you (photos included) how a private person, with the right education, does not need a lawyer when the evidence is on their side and they have the knowledge of the law to hold the party at fault responsible, so to make the party at fault pay 100% of what was due us in way of damages. This specific case in the closing of the article linked above was with Swift Transportation, Inc., and we, a mom & pop one truck operation, we were able to make Swift, a multimillion dollar self insured mega trucking company, pay every penny of the claim we submitted to them, no lawyers involved.
No disagreement on that. I absolutely am in favor of civility.
But lack of civility IS NOT LIBEL.
Under no circumstances should a politician be allowed to legally define civility, or to attempt to enforce his definition of it, or misrepresent it as libel.
Libel is a lie in print. First and foremost, it MUST BE FALSE. Thus it is said that the first defense against libel is the truth. If it’s true, it’s not libel.
Libel is NOT an opinion, a spin, or a criticism, no matter how hateful or vitriolic, that the accuser doesn’t like, as long as the central facts in play are true. So-called “hate speech” is not libel. Bias is not itself libelous, regardless whether the bias is liberal or conservative. Criticizing any public figure’s character, based on his past words or actions on record, is not libel, regardless whether that criticism is expressed in an uncivil manner, and regardless whether it’s Trump or Cruz being criticized. That even some FReepers seem to think it is libelous, and that the critic should be silenced with threats of a lawsuit, is scary.
The lack of integrity to which you refer, IMO, has little to do with libel, and is more about a failure to separate opinion from fact.
Journalists with integrity in the past understood the basic rule that opinions belonged on the op-ed page, and straight news was “just the facts, ma’am.”
The problem is that we have SJWs posing as journalists, pushing an agenda, as well as poorly educated readers who often cannot distinguish facts from spin.
Also, a lot of the lack of integrity to which you refer—the meanness, vulgarity, etc., is simply sensationalism driven by ratings. That doesn’t make it libelous. “Gotcha” questions aren’t libel.
Trump’s threat to change libel laws and ramp up “law fare” (using aggressive litigation to silence dissent) further serves the interests of the tyrannical left. The inevitable result is that only the officially government approved spin will be allowed, regardless of the facts.
IOW, Mr. Trump has inadvertently revealed that he’s actually in favor of political correctness, not against it, as he has heretofore led us to believe-as long as HE and his supporters are the ones who get to decide what’s allowed and what isn’t.
And so it would seem that you have misunderstood the entire purpose of reversing the Sullivan case, which had nothing to do with civility, but everything to do with defamation.
defamation: the act of defaming; false or unjustified injury of the good reputation of another, as by slander or libel; also calumny, vilification, and traducement- is the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual person, business, product, group, government, religion, or nation.
And yes, I agree that Trump does come off as wanting to quash free speech, that is how I interpreted it the 1st time I heard him and then I went back, listened again and then listened to more of his campaign speeches over the past couple of weeks and I realized I was wrong. We must remember, the Constitution does not give DC the power to legislate in the areas of speech, that still remains with the states, and Trump is on the record as wanting to restore the 1st Amendment, not usurp it, which means doing what he can to get the Sullivan ruling overturned. But don't hold your breath, the 5th column is well entrenched & its going to take a lot of digging to topple that unconstitutional foundation.
And YES, defamation in the way of libel CAN come from an op-ed just as much as from a ‘news’ story because as you said, these op-ed writers consider themselves journalists, when in fact, they are nothing more than Ann Landers offering her advice on any given topic or person. They still can be held accountable if what they write something they claim as fact, happens to be a lie.
Sure, defamation can be found in an op-ed piece. I didn’t say it couldn’t. I said the opinions aren’t necessarily libelous, no matter how uncivil or objectionable, as long as the central facts aren’t false.
From there, though, we must agree to disagree.
I think the malice standard upheld in Sullivan, while imperfect, is the best possible standard to have, precisely because it places burden of proof on the accuser, thus discouraging frivolous lawsuits of the type that Trump likes to file. At the same time Sullivan holds the press to a very basic standard of integrity. They simply can not print lies, and the fact is, the mainstream media rarely do, precisely because they don’t like to get sued.
Even if they win, it’s still expensive, and their credibility is damaged.
Removing that standard set by Sullivan leaves us with no standard at all except the assumption that the accuser is telling the truth when he accuses the defendant of printing lies.
That is a very dangerous assumption, particularly when the accuser is the government. So if we are to assume, let’s assume the government is more likely to lie, not the press.
I thought the problem was that the press is too cozy with the democrat administration? That the press fails to be critical enough? But even the biased, liberal media has told us about a multitude of transgressions of the Clintons and Obamas, and have not backed down under Obama’s and Holder’s harassment.
Do you not understand that “opening up” the libel laws as Trump suggests, effectively guarantees that the press must be even more cozy with the government in order to survive? That Trump wants to handpick reporters and pre-approve questions?
Trump really is all about Trump and his own perceived right to slime anyone who challenges him. He’s not standing up for anyone else’s Constitutional rights. He’s peeved that he lost a previous libel suit against a guy who wrote a book about him; he’s peeved he had to back off his threat to sue Cruz, and he wants to get even with everyone.
Trump actually benefits from the Sullivan ruling. Without it Ben Carson could have dragged Trump and several media outlets into court for calling him a “pathological personality” and comparing him to a child molester.
Under Sullivan, the burden of proof would have been on Ben Carson.
Thus, Trump benefits from Sullivan. Trump’s first amendment right to be an asshole, as well as the media’s right to report that he is an asshole, remains intact.
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