Law Provisions for Journalists Facing Defamation Cases Essay

12. New York Times v Sullivan (502)- First off you need to know that libel is the written defamation of character. A person who believes their name and character have been harmed can sue. In this case, the supreme court declared that freedom of the press takes precedence—at least when the defamed individual is a public official.

In some circumstances the statement can be used as evidence without the support of the victim and the final decision in regards to continue with the prosecution will depend on the CPS and police seriousness of the crime and available evidence. It may be decided it’s in the public interest despite the wishes of the victim.

New Yorker Magazine it states that there must be clear intent to tarnish one’s reputation in order for libel tort law to come into effect. This case was very similar in regards that there was enough evidence that suggest there was intent to hurt the reputation of those mentioned in the articles. Also in the case Anderson v. Liberty Lobby it states the plaintiff must be able to prove that there was in fact damage done to one’s reputation and be able to proof to judges that there was actual malice. As with this case, the court of appeals must take in consideration if the ruling can be made in favor of the plaintiff and that if the summary judgement would go in favor of the plaintiff. The judges want to make sure that they are not wasting time and that there was actual damage done to the plaintiff which can be awarded for punitive

The purpose of this report is to analyse journalism practices employed in newspaper reporting across different outlets and to analyse if the practice was in line with the media

An example of a defamation case is Zenaida Gonzalez vs Casey Anthony. During the course of the murder investigation Casey Anthony told police that Caylee had been left with a babysitter named Zenaida Gonzalez, and that the babysitter had kidnapped Caylee. During the trial criminal trial Anthony admitted this claims were false. Gonzalez then sued Anthony for defamation

accounts of sexual abuse,But all the evidence of the case is pointing otherwise. Such as the

Journalists must now be much more careful with their work, and must strictly follow the regulations put in place or suffer the consequences.

To sum, the case is about an advertising the newspaper included some inaccurate story about the civic leaders, civil right events, and Sullivan. Sullivan (a public official) believed that the defamatory comments that were made of him were making a negative impact on his life, thus he sued the New York times. The court in Alabama at the time ruled “The law … implies legal injury from bare facts of publication itself, falsity and malice are presumed, general damages no need to presume.” Thus, the court from Alabama gave Sullivan a compensation of five hundred thousand dollars. New York times decided to take this case to the supreme court because they believe their 1st amendment rights were being violated. Therefore, a new question arose whether the first amendment protects defamatory, false statements concerning public officials? The court ruled that the 1st amendment does protect the publication of all statements, even false ones, concerning the conduct of a public official except when the statement was made with actual malice. Once again, we notice the irony of freedom of speech the issue is citizens are not informed that under the 1st amendment there is sufficient rights guarantee. It is not solely having the right to express our emotions towards the government, it is to expose information to citizens and have the citizens decided for themselves. Democracy does not work if the government or public official try to hide information from its citizens. Democracy function when there is a clear majority of press that expose the truth and allow people to determine what the issue is. Press must be able to protect us against an overreaching government. Sometimes executive power tries to control the press because they do not want to inform the truth about that for example the Watergates scandal, Edward Snowden, Wiki leaks and

The Plaintiff, Sullivan, was one of three Commissioners of Montgomery, Alabama who sued the Defendant, the New York Times, for printing and releasing an full page ad about the civil rights movement taking place in the south that defamed Sullivan. The ad was called "Heed Their Rising Voices" and it caused a "wave" of terror that had been directed against those who took place in the civil rights movement in the South. Some of the facts were false. The ad didn't single handily point out Sullivan, he claimed that it referred to him indirectly because he had oversight responsibility of the police. The Defendant stated that they didn't have any reason or proof to say the facts were false. No one put out the extra effort to see if the facts were false

Reviewing precedent of New York Times v. Sullivan about the right to make false statements. In this case, the Court ruled that states must prove that he or she had malice whining creating a false statement. This case is related to the United States v. Fields as it explains that speech is restricted for content reasons if and only malice can be proven. Another precedent is Texas v. Johnson as it demonstrates the right to disagreeable speech as he had the right to free speech when he burned his flag. The case related by the person’s speech as it would offends the doings by lying.

I support the views of Jessica Mitford. The journalists are trying to find information on a person

P is suing for defamation of his reputation. The reporter has a 1st amendment right to freedom of speech. Dr. P also has a constitutional right of not being defamed. In this situation of freedom of and freedom to, I would like to continue talking about the 4th requirement of defamation. I have said the statement is about public interest and or a public figure. In this case Dr. P in my opinion is a public actor. Because of this we have to prove actual malice. (This is not a part of my response… Just talking to you. You said actual malice is harder to prove. I am actually leaning the other way or going back and forth in my head. It would be so much easier to just say that the reporter had a reasonable effort to verify facts. In this case DR. P is a public figure. I could actually argue either way in the case that there is malice or there is not an obvious disregard for the truth. This is a tough question. One in which I wish this were an in seat class.) In this situation the reporter made false statements while recklessly disregarding the truth. The reporter made no reasonable efforts to verify the fact that Dr. P was screaming for blood. The reasonable effort to verify facts usually applies to private citizens and private matters. While Dr. P is a public figure he has less protection as a public figure. I would argue thought that the reporter had a reckless disregard for the truth. The picture he received does in fact place Dr. P at the cockfight. It doesn’t prove that he was screaming for blood. The reporter’s statements are made up. When it was said, “he secretly revels violence” is wrong and fabricated. There is no factual basis in this

Many Attorneys General of many countries believe that if a journalist publishes classified news taken from unauthorized and illegal sources, then for the sake of the national security of the country the journalist should be prosecuted. But then the question arises whether or not the laws of that country allow one to prosecute a journalist or not? After all the journalists and the press ensures the freedom of expression of a federal democratic country.

The duty of journalists is to tell the truth. Journalism means you go back to the actual facts, you look at the documents, you discover what the record is, and you report it that way. — Chomsky 2008

The second major cas in that helped to clarify the meaning of libel was the court case of Crutis Publishing Co. v Butts. The case helped to clarify the meaning of defamation claims brought by private individuals. The case held that news organizations were protected from liability when printing allegations about public officials, although they may still be sued by public figures if the information they printed was recklessly gathered or if it was left unchecked. Again because it is difficult to prove either of theses, the press ended up with more freedom to print political corruption and scandal.