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In 1960, Martin Luther King Jr. faced felony charges in the midst of the civil rights movement. Facing down a lengthy prison sentence, a full page ad was taken out in the New York Times to raise money for his defense fund. The Times was sued for defamation and soon found themselves involved in a landmark Supreme Court case. Today we’ll be reviewing the history and implications of the New York Times v Sullivan.
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The lawsuit against the Times was brought by Montgomery police commissioner Sullivan following the ad that criticized his mistreatment of civil rights protestors. The ad contained minor inaccuracies like the number of times King had been arrested. While he was not named in the ad, Sullivan said that he was defamed since he oversaw the police in Montgomery.
The New York Times initially lost the case but appealed the verdict all the way to the Supreme Court. The court returned a unanimous ruling that the Alabama courts had violated the Times’ first amendment rights and threw out the 500 thousand dollar libel judgement. The ruling set a precedent that news publications were not liable for libel if the accuser could not be proven to have actual malice while presenting the false information. The subsequent case Curtis Publishing v Butts extended this standard to all public figures.
The cases had immediate and long term effects for public figures and the press in the United States. Similar defamation suits were used to prevent critical coverage of officials in southern states. Before the case, there were over 300 million dollars in libel judgements outstanding against news organizations. Following the decision, newspapers were able to report the events of civil rights era with less restrictions.
The actual malice standard was already law in many states including Alabama at the time but worked under the assumption that only someone with malice would publish something that was not correct. The court reinterpreted the standard to mean that someone alleging defamation must prove that the defendant knew the information was wrong and published it anyways. Naturally, this standard of proof is incredibly difficult to meet and has made it nearly impossible for public figures in the United States to win defamation suits in court.
To show you how hard this is, let’s assume Just the Issues gets into commenting on the day to day partisan bickering and says your favorite politician eats puppies for breakfast. Unless the politician could bring hard evidence that proves I knew it was incorrect at the time of publishing, they would not win the case. This is why you see tabloids with completely outlandish claims in the check out aisle at grocery stores. Legally, there’s nothing public figures can do to stop them.
The interpretation of the actual malice standard has come under some scrutiny in recent years. While the standard protects journalists from legal action when getting things wrong, critics believe it allows news organizations to knowingly publish false information. This is because it’s nearly impossible for accusers to prove they did know the claims were false.
What do you think about the actual malice standard? Do you think that reform would decrease current political tensions? Let me know in the comments down below and don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe. Thank you for watching and have a great day!