It bothers me that public figures can be libeled simply because they are a public figure.
Shouldn’t this be illegal no matter who it is?
If untruths were told about NBC by other media outlets, and it hurt their bottom line significantly, I’ll bet NBC would be in court same day.
If you think about it, libel and slander laws are an imposition by the state on someone's freedom of speech even though we are talking about a civil action between nongovernmental agents. Those laws exist before the First Amendment and it in some applications and in some jurisdictions understood that libel and slander were not protected by that amendment. The
New York Times vs. Sullivan case raises the bar but only for public persons to prove slander or libel by requiring them to show malice.
The court justified this distinction in the application of libel and slander laws because it sought to protect robust debate where it counts most, on public issues which, presumably, are debated usually by public officials and public personas. A public person still has a right to collect if he can convince a jury that the utterance was not only false, and caused injury, but was malicious.
I don't have a problem with the way the court balanced these two competing interests of permitting individuals to protect their good name as well as encouraging robust public debate on public issues. I do have a problem when the person is barred from recovery by the very process which libels him.
