Today Is The 50th Anniversary of The (Re-) Birth of The First Amendment - The Atlantic PDF

Today Is the 50th Anniversary of the (Re-)Birth of the First Amendment - The Atlantic 10/30/14, 2:30 PM
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Today Is the 50th Anniversary of the VIDEO
(Re-)Birth of the First Amendment Google Street View,

Transformed Into a
On March 9, 1964, a unanimous Supreme Court reversed a libel verdict against The New York Tiny Planet
Times in a case brought by Alabama officials who complained about a civil rights advertisement A 360-degree tour of our world,
in the paper. The First Amendment, thankfully, hasn't been the same since. made entirely from Google's
ANDREW COHEN MAR 9 2014, 2:18 PM ET panoramas
 MORE IN NATIONAL
 In Texas, the Death

Penalty Is Slowly

Dying Out
MATT FORD

Charles Barkley and
the Plague of

'Unintelligent'
Blacks
 TA-NEHISI COATES
David Rubenstein's
Patriotic
Philanthropy
SOPHIE GILBERT
A young woman gets is hosed by firemen as an anti-segregation march is broken up in Birmingham, Ala.
on May 8, 1963. (AP)
Every person who writes online or otherwise about public officials, every hack or
poet who criticizes the work of government, every distinguished journalist or
pajama-ed blogger who speaks truth to power, ought to bow his or her head
today in a silent moment of gratitude for a single United States Supreme Court
In Focus
decision issued 50 years ago today. It means simply that you can make an honest
mistake when writing about a public figure and won't likely get sued.*
New York Times v. Sullivan, decided unanimously by the Court on March 9,

1964, in a decision written by Justice William Brennan, finally gave national
force to the lofty words of the First Amendment, that there should be "no law...
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." Without that ruling, and the
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/03/today-is-the-50…ry-of-the-re-birth-of-the-first-amendment/284311/?single_page=true Page 1 of 14
precedent it has generated since (despite the efforts of Justice Antonin Scalia),
investigative and opinion journalism as we know it today would not exist.
Much of the coverage of the 50th anniversary of the ruling, such as there has
been, has focused logically upon its impact upon modern First Amendment law.
But it is important to remember today that the case arose in the heat of the civil
rights movement and that state libel laws, like the Alabama statute that the
Protesters Storm, Burn Burkina Faso
Court struck down, were routinely used as weapons by local officials to scare Parliament
journalists away from covering the worst government excesses of that period.
It's also important to remember that until Sullivan, the First Amendment had
traditionally been interpreted very narrowly. So narrowly, in fact, that the
JUST IN
concept of libel was widely thought to be beyond constitutional purview. Let me
put it this way (and I'm not the first to suggest this): If there were no Sullivan,
there likely would not have been a release of the Pentagon Papers or a rigorous
investigation into Watergate or much of any withering criticism of government The Shrimp is a Lie
MEGAN GARBER
that appears today in any medium.
Inner-City Violence in the Age of

The Story Mass Incarceration
HEATHER ANN THOMPSON
The story began in
Montgomery, Alabama, How Sick Chickens And Rice Led
on March 29, 1960, when Scientists to Vitamin B1
a political advertisement SARAH LASKOW
appeared in The Times

titled "Heed Their Rising
Voices" criticizing
Southern officials for
their aggressive response
to civil rights protests.
The advertisement,
signed at the bottom by
civil rights leaders and
others, was inaccurate in
a few minor respects but
it incriminated no
Southern official by
name. It appeared only
once in the paper and it
cost less than $5,000 to
publish.
This did not deter L.B.

Sullivan, the Montgomery
Public Safety
"Heed Their Rising Voices" advertisement (National Archives) Commissioner at the time
of the ad. First he asked
the Times to make a public retraction to him. The paper did not. Then he sued
the Times (and four black ministers who had undersigned it) under Alabama's
broad libel law, arguing that they had defamed him and could not, because of the
errors in the advertisement, successfully assert "truth" as a defense to the
charge.
The state trial judge in the case was an unreconstructed Confederate and a
Southern jury quickly came back with a $500,000 judgment against the
defendants—a significant amount today that was even more significant then. The
paper appealed the ruling to the Alabama Supreme Court, which in affirming the
trial court ruling made the state's libel law, and thus the media's potential
exposure, even broader still.
The trial judge had told jurors that the advertisement was libelous per se—that it
was presumed to be libelous in other words. And both the trial judge and the
state supreme court justices expanded the definition of the "malice" required in
libel law to include, for example, "irresponsibility." The Alabama courts even
implied that most any government official could sue for libel even if the public
criticism was only directed at his or her office: "libel on government," it is called.
The Decision
The Supreme Court grabbed the case. The Alabama courts had quickly
dispatched with the First Amendment defense The Times had asserted by
declaring that it did not apply to libel cases. The justices in turn quickly
dispatched with that position, which they declared would unlawfully "shackle
the First Amendment in its attempt to secure 'the widest possible dissemination
of information from diverse and antagonistic sources.'"
Justice Brennan wrote the ruling on behalf of a unanimous Court (there were
two concurrences but no dissents). First he cited Judge Learned Hand, probably
the most influential judge in American history never to have served on the
Court. The First Amendment, Judge Hand had written decades earlier:
presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a

multitude of tongues than through any kind of authoritative section. To
many, this is, and always will be, folly, but we have upon it our all.
Then Justice Brennan cited the language of Justice Louis Brandeis, another
colossal figure in the history of the Court, in Whitney v. California. Justice
Brandeis had written:
Those who won our independence believed . . . that public discussion is a

political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the
American government. They recognized the risks to which all human
institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely
through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to
discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that
repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path
of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and
proposed remedies, and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good
ones.
Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they

eschewed silence coerced by law -- the argument of force in its worst form.
Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended
the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.
Applying this analysis, the Court in Sullivan then framed the conflict this way:
Thus, we consider this case against the background of a profound national

commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be
uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement,
caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and
public officials. The present advertisement, as an expression of grievance
and protest on one of the major public issues of our time, would seem
clearly to qualify for the constitutional protection. The question is whether it
forfeits that protection by the falsity of some of its factual statements and by
its alleged defamation of respondent (citations omitted by me).
Applying this standard, the Court declared that Alabama's libel law created a
form of "self-censorship" by reporters (and also, notably, the "citizen-critic")
that was inconsistent with First Amendment principles. A public official alleging
libel would have to show "actual malice" on the part of the publishing defendant
with "convincing clarity." To establish this, Justice Brennan wrote, a plaintiff
would have to show either that the person publishing the material knew it to be
false or published it after exercising a "reckless disregard" for its truth.
And as to the sweeping notion that Sullivan had been injured and was entitled to
money damages because of the general criticism of "the police" in Montgomery,
the justices held that: "no court of last resort in this country has ever held, or
even suggested, that prosecutions for libel on government have any place in the
American system of jurisprudence." This is why all of us can blast the Obama
Administration, or the Bush Administration, without fear that some bureaucrat
within those administrations will consider himself aggrieved enough to sue.
Even though the ruling was unanimous, there was drama behind the scenes at
the Supreme Court—the last-minute decision by Justice John Marshal Harlan,
for example, to join the majority decision, Justice Hugo Black, meanwhile, a
First Amendment absolutist, wrote: "I vote to reverse [the Alabama judgment]
exclusively on the ground that the Times and the individual defendants had an
absolute, unconditional constitutional right to publish in the Times
advertisement their criticisms of Montgomery agencies and officials."
Resources
The best work on the Sullivan decision is Make No Law, a book written in 1991
by the late, great Anthony Lewis, who was covering the Supreme Court in 1963
and 1964 for The Times. (Just think, for a moment, that those two terms alone
would allow Lewis to produce his book on Sullivan as well as "Gideon's
Trumpet," his masterpiece on Gideon v. Wainwright, the seminal right to
counsel case decided almost exactly one year before Sullivan).
If you don't have time to read Make No Law, then go ahead and spend an hour
now to listen and to watch Tony Lewis talk about it, and the Supreme Court, and
the First Amendment, with Brian Lamb on C-SPAN. This is a conversation that
tells us so much about each man, and about the case, and about the law and the
Court 50 years ago. Every professor who teaches the first amendment, either in
law school or to undergraduates, ought to play this video to students.
And if after listening to Lewis and Lamb talk about the case you want to get a
true feel for the issues in play at the time—six weeks after the assassination of
President Kennedy, months before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964—
go ahead and listen to the oral argument in the case from January 6-7, 1964, one
of the more intense or passionate arguments you ever will hear (or see).
Finally, if you want to take a broader look at the context of the Sullivan case take
the time to read The Race Beat, published, like Make No Law, in 1991. This
book, written by revered journalists Gene Robert and Hank Klibanoff, helps us
remember today all that was at stake in 1964 and how likely history would have
been different had journalists back then been chilled from reporting the truth
about the Southern response to the civil rights movement.
____________
* But that doesn't mean you still won't get in big trouble if you make a mistake
reporting about a public figure. On Friday, for example, a state trial judge in
New York permitted a libel lawsuit brought by Michael Skakel to proceed (at
least a little further) against television personalities Nancy Grace and Beth Karas
and show producers at Time Warner and the Turner Broadcasting System.
 Jump to Comments (42)
     
ANDREW COHEN is a contributing editor at The Atlantic. He is a legal analyst for 60 Minutes and
CBS Radio News, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, and Commentary Editor at The
Marshall Project
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Esther Simpson • 8 months ago

God bless America, land that I love.
I sorely needed this splendid reaffirmation of the value of free speech, especially
after reading the many stultifying comments on Natalie Dicou's excellent article on
polygamy. Thank you, Andrew; I feel better now.
5△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›
Eupseiphos • 8 months ago

" It means simply that you can make an honest mistake when writing about a
public figure and won't likely get sued."
Unless you are a conservative questioning a prominent liberal...just ask Mark

Steyn.
The Wet One > Eupseiphos • 8 months ago

Reference please.
stephen matlock > The Wet One • 8 months ago

The best I can figure out is that this is a Canadian issue. Mark Steyn
(a one-time regular at NRO 'till he was mysteriously banned) has, as
best as I can find out, never been subject to a case where his First
Amendment rights have been violated.
Mr. Fusion > stephen matlock • 8 months ago

The National Review is an American publication.
stephen matlock > Mr. Fusion • 8 months ago

True that. I should have made the connection more clear.
Mark Steyn, a Canadian citizen residing in New Hampshire,

used to write frequently for the National Review, and no
longer does. There was a situation where Mr. Steyn was
entangled with a Canadian governmental agency.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
I had a hazy memory of that. My intention was not to imply

the National Review was Canadian.
John Spragge > The Wet One • 8 months ago

Mark Steyn published a comment on the National Review accusing
a university researcher of dishonesty, and quoting a blog post
comparing his behaviour to the notorious pedophile Jerry Sandusky.
You can read an account of the case here, and Mark Steyn's
position here. The critical distinction does not involve ideology, but
rather recklessness: a public figure can only recover damages for
defamation if they can establish that the defendant acted with
reckless disregard for the truth. The courts have ruled that Michael
Mann's claims against Mark Steyn have to potential to clear that
bar.
The Wet One > John Spragge • 8 months ago

Thanks for that.
The Wet One > John Spragge • 8 months ago

BTW, is Mr. Mann a prominent liberal? I've never heard of
him. Unless of course climate scientist = liberal, which seems
pretty odd to me, as science is science wherever the truth
might lead, but these are polarized times, so which side of
the bed you get out of might well play into it and make you a
prominent liberal or convservative. Or so it seems to me.
John Spragge > The Wet One • 8 months ago

You'll have to ask "Eupseiphos" what prominent liberal refers
to. When I googled "Mark Steyn libel" this case came up,
along with a case where a Canadian lawyer has sued
conservative activist and blogger Ezra Levant.
Eupseiphos > The Wet One • 8 months ago

"... as science is science wherever the truth might lead,"
Wow. You are naive. In an alien, ideal world, that might be

true, but not in reality.
Steve Weinstein > Eupseiphos • 8 months ago

Did you read the article? It specifically pointed out — pointed TO —
Michael Skakel suing TV reporters. This is the exact same situation.
Journalists are not public figures as defined here.
Journalists are not public figures as defined here.

Eupseiphos > Steve Weinstein • 8 months ago

No parallel.
Mr. Fusion > Eupseiphos • 8 months ago

Questioning is one thing. Making baseless claims is quite another. Steyn
went after a college professor, claiming he lied in his published research.
The professor is not a public official and has every right to sue for libel.
Eupseiphos > Mr. Fusion • 8 months ago

Baseless? Criminy. He was spot on on most of his comments. Other
aspects are debatable. But definitely not baseless. In Mann's eyes,
the problem was that he used colorful language.
And it makes absolutely no difference if if Mann is not a public

official. He is definitely a publicity-hounding public figure, which, of
course, invites hounding from people who disagree with him.
Mr. Fusion > Eupseiphos • 8 months ago

That is what the trial will solve. I expect the NRO, Rand
Simberg, and CEI to settle out of court with an apology and
retraction. Steyn, being an armpit, will fight on and lose big.
The scientific consensus is climate change is a reality. All the

investigations into the email theft cleared Mann of wrong
doing. The IPCC, as the official arm of the UN has backed
Mann's work. The American government through the EPA,
NASA, and NOAA have supported Mann's work. Thus
claiming, without providing any evidence, that Mann's work
is bogus is "baseless".
FlameCCT > Mr. Fusion • 8 months ago

I expect that Mann will lose. It has already been proven that
his court briefs themselves contain false claims of
exoneration.
The IPCC, a political not scientific, arm of the UN backed

Mann's work and in subsequent years has had to revise and
retract Mann's "hockey stick" graph and other conclusions
based on that data.
BTW: Consensus is a political term not a scientific term. The

science method tests the hypothesis (usually observations)
and the results either supports the hypothesis or it does not.
If the results do support then it normally becomes a working
hypothesis for further study or if solid a theory, i.e.
Pythagorean Theorum. If the results do not support then the
hypothesis is invalid (false.)
Mr. Fusion > FlameCCT • 8 months ago

Math has "proofs", not theories. A theorem has multiple
proofs from different axioms.
The IPCC is a scientific group assigned to investigate a

matter of universal concern. The IPCC did not conceive
Mann's hockey stick, but has endorsed his findings, as has
several other researchers and groups working independently.
Some used the same data and some their own data.
There has been no original research discounting, rebutting,

or refuting this research. All the attempts have had to resort
to inventing their own facts.
ishmael2009 > Mr. Fusion • 8 months ago

The IPCC also agreed that temperatures would steadily
increase with rising Co2 emissions. This hypothesis has been
disproven by the actual recorded temperatures. Hence their
working hypothesis has been disproven. You're entitled to
your own opinions but not to your own facts.
Mr. Fusion > ishmael2009 • 8 months ago

Sorry, but you are just peddling the RWNJ lie. The evidence
has pointed to the exact opposite. The IPCC has not backed
away from their original estimates of the dangers CO2 is
causing.
Your attempt to rewrite the accepted and actual are typical

denial.Just making the claim does not justify anything.
ishmael2009 > Mr. Fusion • 8 months ago

When you say "the evidence has pointed to the exact
opposite" I take you're referring to the temperature record as
stated in my comment. Are you really claiming temperatures
are still rising steadily, despite all scientific evidence to the
contrary?
It doesn't matter how many times you use pejorative words

like peddling, lie, rewrite and denial, the facts are still the
facts. Answer the original statement: the IPCC said
temperatures would rise steadily with rising Co2 emissions.
So, are temperatures still rising steadily, consistent with IPCC
model projections? It's a simple question.
Mr. Fusion > ishmael2009 • 8 months ago

So, are temperatures still rising steadily, consistent with IPCC
model projections? It's a simple question.
According to all the reports, YES.
According to the deniers, no. But then the deniers invent

their facts so how can you really be blamed for being stupid.
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›
John Spragge > ishmael2009 • 8 months ago

Please provide an actual reference to a publication by the
IPCC claiming that temperatures would "steadily increase",
and a link to the data that falsify this.
ishmael2009 > John Spragge • 8 months ago

I'm not your research assistant. But anyone curious can go
to the IPCCs 1990 report and compare the scenarios there
with the actual rise in temperature as published by Hadcrut
and Nasa Giss today. There is a clear divergence and no
amount of obfuscation can alter that fact.

No, you're someone who made a specific assertion. Either
you can back it up or I'll ignore it.
ishmael2009 > John Spragge • 8 months ago

So ignore it then. You asked, I provided the sources - the
IPCCs 1990 report, and the scenarios laid out in there and
the current global temperatures records of Nasa Giss or
alternatively Hadcrut. They substantiate my assertion. My
point about not being your research assistant is in regard to
tracking down the exact web page addresses. I'm assuming
that you or anyone else with a genuine interest is capable of
tracking them down.

I actually took the trouble to do this, and discovered the
following. The IPPC in 1990 predicted
in their current state of development, the descriptions of

many of the processes involved are comparatively crude.
Because of this, considerable uncertainty is attached to
these predictions of climate change, which is reflected in
the range of values given.... the average rate of increase of
global mean temperature during the next century is
estimated to be about 0.3°C per decade (with an
uncertainty range of 0.2°C to 0.5°C).... Because of other
factors which influence climate, we would not expect
the rise to be a steady one.
In other words, the IPCC scientists understood the limits of

their models, and their predictions contemplated an average
rise in temperature of 0.3 degrees celcius per decade, or an
aggregate of 3 degrees by the end of the century. They
explicitly stated that their models did not predict a steady
rise in temperature. The data from NASA's Goddard Institute
pretty much bear this out; they show an uneven rise in global
temperature.
john smith • 8 months ago

"The advertisement...was inaccurate in a few minor respects..."
This rather cryptic quote somewhat distracted me, and detracted from the overall
article.
I understand that factual accuracy wouldn't (and probably shouldn't) have any
bearing on the legal principles involved in this particular case. Nevertheless,
conspicuously ommitting the specific inaccuracies in the advertisment at the

center of the case comes off as shoddy journalism resulting from a biased,
ideological standpoint. It gives the appearance of deliberate obfuscation.
And I'm saying that as someone who, in this particular case, probably shares the
same ideological bias as the author regarding this topic.
Steve Weinstein > john smith • 8 months ago

As the court ruled then and later, in such cases, it wouldn't matter a whit if
there minor or even major inaccuracies. The burden is on the public figure
to prove that they were done "with malice," as opposed to human error.
Mr. Fusion > Steve Weinstein • 8 months ago

... plus demonstrate that the person had been injured by the libel.
In a modern example, calling Obama a communist or Bush a fascist

may be done with malice, but unless that can be demonstrated to
show they were actually injured there is no claim.
knowltok > Mr. Fusion • 7 months ago

Yeah, but can't you come up with examples that aren't 100%
true? ;)
Buckland • 8 months ago

It's amazing how liberals once had high regard for the freedom of speech. Now it's
that freedom is much more of a bother than than a serious guarantee.
Whether it's a liberal climate change activist suing journalists for challenging him
or the Obama FCC looking for a way to place a monitor in newsrooms or a
ThinkProgress writer talking about how much pressure the white house puts on
even liberal journalists to give the approved slant on stories it's always the same.
Liberals like the idea of free speech in the abstract. However when it comes to
others actually speaking they're quick to try to shut them up.
Same with campaign finance reform. Liberals really like the idea because it tends
to shut others out of the process. Who needs other voices that could confuse the
populace?
Too bad that a movement with such a strong tradition of free speech has fallen to
a point where they're always the ones first condemn any speech that disagrees
with their preconceptions.
dsch > Buckland • 8 months ago

Yes, I'm sure restricting corporate money in politics is to shut them out of
the process. Even more scandalously, corporations still don't have the vote!
What is this country coming to?
10 △ ▽ • Reply • Share ›
patrickm01 > Buckland • 8 months ago

This is just incomprehensible. Michael Mann is a "liberal climate change
activist?" It's that kind of surreal la-la-land foolishness that is certain
evidence that persons like Buckland have nothing useful to add.
Fortunately, silliness like this is its own refutation. At some point the tea
party will collapse under the weight of its own guano - the recent primaries
party will collapse under the weight of its own guano - the recent primaries
showed a spark of evidence that this was happening now - and we can get
back to some sort of rational political debate.
Mr. Fusion > Buckland • 8 months ago

A "liberal climate change activist suing journalists for challenging him"?
Sorry dude, but that "journalist" just plain called Michael Mann a liar and
said that his published work knowingly contained false information.
Since any university researcher's reputation is what keeps his job, calling
him a liar is damaging to his career and thus libelous.
But then those on the right love to complain when they are caught lying.
Just like your claim of putting a "monitor" in newsrooms. That was never a
policy and not even a plan. There was a suggestion for a study on news
gathering and reporting by the FCC. But you knew that, you just like to troll.
FlameCCT > Mr. Fusion • 8 months ago

Sorry but the Obama administration tried to have Fox News
reporters banned however all the reporters and their parent
corporations, both conservative and liberal, all stood up for freedom
of the press. We also have the administration going after reporters
from the AP and Fox News.
Actually the FCC attempted to implement their plan of "studying"

news rooms but have delayed it since several news agencies balked
at the government intrusion.
Mr. Fusion > FlameCCT • 8 months ago

the Obama administration tried to have Fox News reporters
banned
I'm sure you can provide a cite for that claim.
I do believe you have the Obama Administration confused

with the Bush Administration which did discriminate against
news organizations. But you knew that.
moresteps > Buckland • 8 months ago

the amazing thing is how "conservatives" such as Buckland try to get
reality to stand on its head. others have noted the bizarre twist of language
in which the journalist who libels a research is the one victimized by the
resultant suit.
campaign finance reform in arizona has allowed more grass roots, right-
wing folks to get elected. yet "Liberals really like the idea because it tends
to shut other out of the process." bizarre.
the f.c.c. was looking to survey media outlets as to how news judgements
were made. the purpose was to see if there were structural impediments to
all voices in a market having access to the available media. may be or may
not be a good idea. but there was no proposal or plan "to place a monitor
in newsrooms".
the media is still free and a often a good source of news. Buckland should
use more of it.
UncleStu > moresteps • 8 months ago

"Buckland should use more of it."
He has often shown here that he has no use for actual facts.
I suggest that people stop responding to his BS because it is always

BS and never constructive. I would not suggest that for anyone just
because I disagree with them.
I think it was Patrick Moynihan who siad, "People are entitled to
their own opinions but not their own facts."
DukeLax • 8 months ago

Thats something i cannot wrap my mind around. This case has been somehow
twisted and perverted to in effect make a case for letting American media make
money off "Inflaming the public" with misinformation...and then they claim they
should not have to be held accountable to those that have been hurt by these
media "inflammations"
Guest • 8 months ago

A Cohen article that isn't about the death penalty? Well, I'll be!
Mike May • 8 months ago

But this article, and perhaps the ruling itself, doesn't account for those who have
been slandered by the press without having the power and money to fight back.
Sure, the press can say whatever they want about a public official, and that official
has the resources to sue if the information is inaccurate. However, I think there is a
greater problem in the press in which allegations against regular people have
unflattering mugshots of themselves plastered in the front page of a local paper for
offenses that are "alleged" against them; alleged being the operative word here.
These people often have no means of suing, and yet they are presented as
presumed guilty before being proven so for the sake of sensationalism, and then MOST POPULAR
have to go on facing the many people who have seen their faces on the front page
in an unflattering light.
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Today Is The 50th Anniversary of The (Re-) Birth of The First Amendment - The Atlantic PDF

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Today Is the 50th Anniversary of the (Re-)Birth of the First Amendment - The Atlantic 10/30/14, 2:30 PM

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POLI TIC S  B U SI NE S S  TE CH  E N TE RTA IN M EN T  H E A LTH  E D UC AT I O N  S E XE S  N AT I O NA L  G LO BA L  VI D EO  M A GA ZI NE 

Watch Live: The Washington Ideas Forum 2014

Republicans: Can CEO Pay Ever Racial Shrinking Prisons:

Today Is the 50th Anniversary of the VIDEO

(Re-)Birth of the First Amendment Google Street View,

 In Texas, the Death

New York Times v. Sullivan, decided unanimously by the Court on March 9,

Inner-City Violence in the Age of

appeared in The Times

This did not deter L.B.

presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a

Those who won our independence believed . . . that public discussion is a

Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they

Thus, we consider this case against the background of a profound national

 Jump to Comments (42)

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Esther Simpson • 8 months ago

Eupseiphos • 8 months ago

Unless you are a conservative questioning a prominent liberal...just ask Mark

The Wet One > Eupseiphos • 8 months ago

stephen matlock > The Wet One • 8 months ago

Mr. Fusion > stephen matlock • 8 months ago

stephen matlock > Mr. Fusion • 8 months ago

Mark Steyn, a Canadian citizen residing in New Hampshire,

I had a hazy memory of that. My intention was not to imply

John Spragge > The Wet One • 8 months ago

The Wet One > John Spragge • 8 months ago

The Wet One > John Spragge • 8 months ago

John Spragge > The Wet One • 8 months ago

Eupseiphos > The Wet One • 8 months ago

Wow. You are naive. In an alien, ideal world, that might be

Steve Weinstein > Eupseiphos • 8 months ago

Journalists are not public figures as defined here.

Eupseiphos > Steve Weinstein • 8 months ago

Mr. Fusion > Eupseiphos • 8 months ago

Eupseiphos > Mr. Fusion • 8 months ago

And it makes absolutely no diﬀerence if if Mann is not a public

Mr. Fusion > Eupseiphos • 8 months ago

The scientific consensus is climate change is a reality. All the

FlameCCT > Mr. Fusion • 8 months ago

The IPCC, a political not scientific, arm of the UN backed

BTW: Consensus is a political term not a scientific term. The

Mr. Fusion > FlameCCT • 8 months ago

The IPCC is a scientific group assigned to investigate a

There has been no original research discounting, rebutting,

ishmael2009 > Mr. Fusion • 8 months ago

Mr. Fusion > ishmael2009 • 8 months ago

Your attempt to rewrite the accepted and actual are typical

ishmael2009 > Mr. Fusion • 8 months ago

It doesn't matter how many times you use pejorative words

Mr. Fusion > ishmael2009 • 8 months ago

According to all the reports, YES.

According to the deniers, no. But then the deniers invent

John Spragge > ishmael2009 • 8 months ago