Thread by @JeffRoushPoetry

In 1964 in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court adopted an “actual malice” standard for libel lawsuits by public officials. This has always been a difficult standard to reach.
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oyez.org/cases/1963/39

That case involved errors made in a newspaper ad for fundraising support for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A city commissioner in Alabama won a $500,000 damages award, despite not being named in the ad. The Court reversed—and created a new libel standard for public officials.

Under the Court’s formulation, “actual malice” requires that a false statement be made either with knowledge of or reckless disregard for its falsity. Some conservative organizations, and some Justices they have purchased, have argued that this standard is too high.

After all, would any organization claiming to be a “news” organization be both so brazen as to report knowingly or likely false information, and leave evidence that they had done so? In almost all cases, plausible deniability is there.

But a funny thing happened in the discovery phase of Dominion’s lawsuit against Fox News. Emails and texts and deposition testimony have shown they were knowingly broadcasting lies—and chose to do so for financial gain.

washingtonpost.com/media/2023/02/…

There is plenty of evidence in the public sphere suggesting that the Fox News approach of declaring lying its “brand” isn’t limited to voting machines. How many public figures has Fox defamed with knowing lies? The floodgates aren’t open yet, but cracks are appearing.

Times v. Sullivan has granted powerful protections to the press in this country—but they are not absolute. It may be interesting to discover how sharp the teeth of libel law remain now that a pretty big player seems to clear that high bar.