COMM 317: Libel and New York Times v. Sullivan

Some links for tonight's class discussion ...

As you read the AP stylebook's discussion of media law, you'll notice most of it is about libel. Why? Probably because it's the point of law we're most likely to get in trouble with.

Here's some stuff to read, and a question for discussion.

On libel in general. We'll start by flipping through a self-paced tutorial on libel by Dorothy Bowles of the College of Communication, University of Tennessee at Knoxville. I would like this one even if I weren't a UTK alumnus who got his first byline in The UT Daily Beacon. Some of you have seen it before (in COMM 207 last semester). It will be a good review. Some of you haven't. It will be a good introduction.

A lot of the cases mentioned in Doctor Bowles' tutorial are from Tennessee (Well, why not? UTK is in Tennessee.) In Illinois, the law is similar. Here's what Hall Adams LCC, a Chicago law firm, says about what you have to prove to sue somebody for defamation -- which, for our purposes, is the same as libel -- in Illinois. Of course, we would turn it around -- we'd take it as what we'd better not do if we don't want to get sued for defamation!

On Times v. Sullivan. This court case isn't as much fun to read as the one about Jerry Falwell and the outhouse, but it set the basic standard for libel -- i.e. the "actual malice" test. Here's Justice Walter Brennan's opinion for the court. What does "actual malice" mean? Here's what Justice Brennan said: It is publication of something "with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." So these are the words we still use, reckless disregard and actual malice. What they mean in individual cases will depend on the facts of the case.

Practice for final. You're the editor of The Daily Democrat Republican, a newspaper in a city not at all like Springfield. With the filing period for city elections coming up, you get an announcement from the Rev. J. Worthington Herringbone III, who is running for school board in the 7th School Board District on a platform of cleaning up vice and immorality among the youth of today. He says the current members of the Board of Education have failed to keep sex, drugs and rock-and-roll out of the schools (Tweed is nothing if not a child of the '60s), and 7th District school board member Katherine ("Kitty") Katz never got over the permissive attitudes toward education of her youth when she was high on drugs in San Francisco during the "summer of love." Katz has acknowledged her past use of "a little spliff now and then," and has said at school board meetings she thinks it gives her a measure of empathy she would not otherwise have as a board member but has no bearing on the issues that come before the school board.

A week after Pastor Herringbone announces, you get some grainy pictures that show two men embracing in the back seat of a taxi. One cannot be identified, but the other bears a strong resemblance to the good pastor, at least to the extent a low-resolution JPEG can bear a strong resemblance to anyone or anything. You call Pastor Herringbone to ask him about the picture, and he hangs up on you as soon as you get the quesstion out. How much of this stuff can you safely print? Why (or why not)? How do you balance the public's right to know and the public figures' right to be treated fairly in this case?

If I went ahead and published the photo, and it turned out to be an ad agency model from New York or Chicago instead of Pastor Herringbone, would he be able to sue me for defamation? Consider each of the factors mentioned by Hall Adams LCC.