December 17, 2024 Estimated Reading Time: 4m |
|
|
If you're reading this, they haven't come for me — yet. In a closely-watched case settled over the weekend, ABC chose to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by President-elect Donald Trump over an inaccurate statement made by George Stephanopoulos by agreeing to pay $15 million toward Trump’s presidential library. Now, Trump is threatening to sue an Iowa pollster and the Des Moines Register over a pre-election poll showing him trailing in the Hawkeye State. Trump is also suing journalist Bob Woodward, not for defamation but over the publication of audio interviews he recorded for a book. Woodward famously, along with Carl Bernstein, broke the Watergate scandal that ended Richard Nixon's presidency. Although Nixon considered suing The Washington Post for libel, he never followed through because the landmark Supreme Court case Sullivan v. New York Times set such a high bar that his advisers knew such a suit would fail. As someone who has been subpoenaed several times and threatened with legal action by several public officials, this all makes me wonder—and fearful—that Trump might embolden more public officials to target journalists for publishing critical stories. Because, after all, that is the job. This week, we're looking at defamation and press freedom in the U.S. Let's talk about it. |
|
|
The Southern history of U.S. Press Freedom |
The nerve of Lester B. Sullivan. For those familiar with the Civil Rights era, Sullivan was Montgomery, Alabama's Bull Connor, serving as public-safety commissioner for the capital city in the 1960s. In May 1961, Freedom Riders were viciously attacked by a white mob in Montgomery. Sullivan promised the Ku Klux Klan that when the bus arrived from Birmingham, they would be allowed to attack the riders with baseball bats, hammers, and pipes without police interference. Severely injured were future Congressman John Lewis and John Siegenthaler, an aide to Bobby Kennedy, the father of Trump's soon-to-be health czar. In a subsequent federal lawsuit in which Klan groups, Sullivan and others were named as defendants, a district court judge determined that "the Montgomery Police Department, under the direction of Sullivan [and other city officials] ... willfully and deliberately failed to take measures to ensure the safety of the students and to prevent unlawful acts of violence upon their persons." Rewind a couple years to 1960, when civil rights groups paid for an ad in the New York Times to raise money for the legal defense of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King "and the struggle for freedom in the South," after King-led demonstrations were met with intimidation and violence, including the bombing of his home. Sullivan, the police commissioner who would work in concert with the Klan to attack students on Freedom Rides, sued the newspaper for libel even though he was not named in the advertisement. Alabama courts, not shockingly, ruled in Sullivan's favor; the Times appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, whose unanimous ruling established the precedent for libel and shaped freedom of the press. The court overturned the Alabama Supreme Court ruling, establishing a new standard: public officials who sue for defamation must prove not just that a statement is false, but that it was made with actual malice — meaning the publisher knew it was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. Sixty years later, Sullivan has remained the cornerstone of press freedom under the First Amendment. However, in recent years, public officials, including Trump, have been chipping away at Sullivan's protections hoping to lower the bar for politicians to go after news organizations in court. |
|
|
Data points + Definitions |
|
|
To understand lawsuits involving the media, there are a few terms that are worth knowing. Defamation is a false statement presented as fact that harms a person’s or organization’s reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written/published (libel), and the harmed party may sue for damages if the statement is proven untrue and injurious. Libel refers to defamation in a written, printed, or published form, including newspapers, online articles, and social media posts. To be considered libel, the statement must be false, damaging, and communicated to a third party. Slander is spoken defamation, involving false statements made orally that damage someone’s reputation. Like libel, slander must be proven false and harmful, but it typically involves more fleeting or temporary forms of communication. Actual malice is the standard set in New York Times v. Sullivan for defamation cases involving public figures. It means the false statement was made either with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard for the truth. A SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) lawsuit is meant to intimidate or silence individuals speaking out on matters of public interest. Anti-SLAPP laws exist in many states to protect defendants from frivolous lawsuits aimed at stifling free speech. Other points worth noting: Defamation lawsuits are pretty rare, although there has been an uptick in recent years with the rise of social media. According to the Media Law Resource Center (MLRC), only about 17% of libel suits brought against news organizations succeed. The average settlement or award in a successful libel lawsuit involving the media can range from $200,000 to $2 million, depending on the severity of the harm and the defendant's ability to pay (MLRC). Two of the largest defamation awards in history were against conservative entities. One being last year when right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was ordered to pay $1 billion to family members of the Sandy Hook school shooting survivors for his false claims that the shooting was a hoax. Then, in Dominion Voting Systems vs. Fox News Network, the right-wing cable channel settled the case over defamatory claims their hosts made after the 2020 election for $787 million. |
|
|
As always free to respond to this email with your thoughts, concerns, data points and tips. Peace!
— RL |
|
|
Ryan "R.L." Nave is Reckon's editor-in-chief. Prior to joining Reckon, he served as editor-in-chief of Mississippi Today, now the state’s largest newsroom. Nave was also an editor and reporter at the Jackson (Miss.) Free Press and a staff writer for Illinois Times in the capital, Springfield. He's also been an independent journalist, his work appearing on Serial/The New York Times, Ebony, The Root, The Source and other local and national publications.
His reporting has received dozens of state and national journalism awards. He has led teams whose work garnered local, state and national journalism awards, including the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Journalism and an Edward R. Murrow Award. He was a 2019 McGraw Business Reporting fellow at City University New York and completed fellowships at the University of Colorado-Boulder and Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
He served as president of the Jackson, Miss., chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists and is currently chairman of the board for the Jackson-based Center for Ideas, Equity & Transformative Change. |
|
|
|
