Playboy Enters, Inc. V. Wells: Public Figure Analysis

The Lexington Herald argued that the appellant was a public figure and would be required to prove actual malice in order to win his libel lawsuit. Appellees’ for The Lexington News Herald argued that the prominence of Pittsburgh’s Division I status in the NCAA labeled Warford as a public figure. Moreover, the appellees’ argued that Warford had to be a public figure because his position and recruiting activities voluntarily injected himself into the public controversy regarding the recruiting of college athletes.

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 court case of New York Times vs Sullivan was a case that involved public officials and how they were libeled in the press in the year of nineteen sixty four. L.B. Sullivan was one of three elected commissioners of Alabama. The respondent was L. B. Sullivan was a public official from Alabama and brought a lawsuit against an clergymen, a negro and against a petitioner of the New York Times Company. L.B. Sullivan sued all of these people because he felt that he was libeled in a advertisement of the New York Times. The case had to deal with if the constitutional protections of speech and press limit the states power to award damages for the libel action brought by a public official against the critics of his official conduct.

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 2006 Duke Lacrosse Case brought to light many of the issues and divisions currently plaguing our media sphere. This terrible act of injustice, which blamed three innocent Duke lacrosse players, Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans, for the rape of an African-American stripper, garnered extensive media attention that gripped America for almost an entire year (Wasserman, 3). Today, many scrutinze the media’s methods of covering the case, and deem that certain codes of ethics were not adhered to. Rather than remaining neutral, newspapers and TV outlets allowed themselves to “be used” by Mike Nifong, the former District Attorney for Durham and prosecutor of the case, by reporting

In Adele Lowitz’s memoir, Adele Lowitz: the Lawyer with a Choice she perfectly outlines the consternation of someone in the high position that she once held just a few years ago. Adele served at the head lawyer on one of the most publicised, overt and important and funny law cases in American history. This case which was entitled “SNL vs. the President” was fought between the executive producer of the popular TV show Saturday Night Live and the President of the United States over a joke made on air that was particularly offensive to the leader of the free world. Although it may seem like a non important case in American history, it was actually a turning point in the ability of the media and the power that the government holds. Adele was a powerful lawyer before the case. She graduated at the top of her law school class and was immediately hired by one of the biggest law firms in America. Her younger brother of three years on the other hand was a comedian. He had become an incredibly famous comedian, taking over the Late Night Show For Jimmy Kimmel. Luckily for Adele, her brother had never been on Saturday night

In “ ‘A Steep Price…’” it analyzed the opinions of the public, media, victim, and aggressor in defending their particular take on the case. The article offers mild bias, so it does not completely report the events of the case, because it mostly focuses on the opinionated effects and not so much the facts. In “Feminist Put Judge...”, major bias is introduced by claiming to be in support of the feminist cause; however, the article uses a stronger ethical appeal to attract a broader, more unified audience. In “Here’s the Powerful Letter…”, the author recants the letter the victim wrote to her attacker, Brock Turner. She not only aims for the audience to feel the distress and havoc the case has relinquished on her life, but also a chance to spread a more positive message to thank her supporters while encouraging her audience to stand up for themselves and their self worth. The overall purpose of analyzing all these different media sources is to be able to recognize how the multiple points of view that a story can be told from will alter the objectivity of the event. A society’s culture will emphasis bias or certain point of views to get the public to believe one interpretation of the story based on the

Grimes, J. N. (2010 January-December). The social construction of social problems: "Three Strikes and You 're Out" in the mass media. Journal of Criminal Justice and Law, 2(1-2), 39-56. doi:Ebscohost database

“At what point do we take personal attacks, and permit those, as opposed to -- I fully accept you’re entitled, in some circumstances, to speak about any political issue you want. But where is the line between doing that, and creating hardship for an individual?” –Justice Sonia Sotomayor. In the case of Snyder V. Phelps, Two very passionate sides debated just that. The Snyder family accused Phelps, or Westboro, of the tort claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress, after Westboro picketed Phelps’ son’s funeral. Westboro disputed this, claiming their protests were protected under The First Amendment.

Since the beginning of American history, the media have played a massive role in how people perceive certain viewpoints. The media comes in all different shapes, whether it is propaganda, a commercial, advertisements and even newspaper articles can influence and individual minds. It can be even used to change one’s opinion on the way they may think of a particular race. Still today the media influences our mind, however many believe due to media bias and racial profiling will affect how “fair” their trial will be. In fact in today’s society, citizens in the United States are unable to gain a fair trial due to racial profiling, and bias in the media.

For example, in the case of Elonis v. United States, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to address this increasingly relevant issue in deciding whether an individual’s Facebook posts qualified as true threats. Elonis was charged in accordance to Section 875(c) of U.S. Law. Section 875(c) governs the class of statements that do not enjoy First Amendment protections because they constitute true threats. As aforementioned previously, while the Supreme Court has upheld the protections of free speech, this trial marks an instance where true threats were declared as a category of speech unprotected by the First Amendment. When analyzing statutory provisions that reference true threats, however, the Court has applied varying intent standards to the crimes, without referencing the First Amendment implications of these statements. (Best 1132) Even so, the significance of Elonis v. United States is unequivocal-the Court ruled that the First Amendment does not protect legitimate or “true” threats, and that any speech that targets or endangers the wellbeing of another is not free speech and can be

So the need for more drastic, shock and awe type actions from people desiring to be heard on any particular matter has been brought to the forefront. This is where the Bill of Rights has drastically come into play. At this point the Supreme Court has to protect the freedoms without stripping Americans of their rights entirely but it also has to protect Americans from those who wish to do harm to others under the protection of freedom of speech or expression. Not only does the First Amendment provide for freedom of speech but also freedom of expression which is as equally controversial. By examining the First Amendment and the protections and exclusions it has provided over the years through three highly controversial cases, it will allow the reader some insight into the difficulties surrounding the protection of free speech. The cases that are to be examined are Snyder v. Phelps, Morse v. Frederick and Texas v. Johnson. All of these cases present a different freedom of speech or expression issue that was brought to the Supreme Court and therefore, set a standard for future rulings regarding that particular issue.

In today’s society, we as a nation showcase our lives through social media. The case, Elonis vs. The United States, the petitioner, Anthony Douglas Elonis, is no different. He was an inspiring rap artist and was using Facebook as a platform to share his lyrics. After his divorce, things got out of hand. He started to post threatful lyrics about his wife, co-workers, and a kindergarten school. One of his friends saw these post and decided to report it. The FBI ended up getting involved and before long Elonis found out and started to post about the FBI agent. The FBI then had enough of it, so they arrested him. At the lower court the jury of his peers felt that the post constituted a reasonable threat and sentenced him to 44 months in prison. He, of course, appealed it, sending it to the Supreme Court, saying that his intent was not threatful. The Supreme

There are many different aspects of American Culture. One part of this culture is the idolization of beautiful women. Playboy is one of many examples of how Americans idolize women. Playboy Enterprises, recognized by their iconic Playboy Bunny symbol, started off as just a men’s magazine that includes journal articles, fiction, and of course, photographs of nude women. Playboy Magazine was founded by Hugh Hefner in Chicago, Illinois in 1953. Hefner incorporated HMH Publishing Co., Inc. in Delaware on October 1, 1953. In December of 1953 Hefner released the first issue of the magazine that would feature Marilyn Monroe on the cover. It would become very successful, selling more than 50,000 copies of the first issue.

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.