Defamation versus free expression

Samantha Stillions
Managing Editor, the North Star

If there is one word that journalists despise, its defamation. According to dictionary.com, defamation is “false or unjustified injury of the good reputation of another, as by slander or libel.”

When a journalist writes a story that contains false information detrimental to another person’s reputation, the one defamed can file a suit for defamation of character. Every person has the right to defend themselves when they feel they have been falsely accused of something.

On the other hand, the very existence of these laws interferes with rights listed in the First Amendment. The press has the right to print the truth, even when the truth is not pretty. Citizens of the United States have the right to freedom of expression. Thus, if a reporter or any person writes something unfavorable, he/she has the right to do so, according to the First Amendment.

Because of these two conflicting ideas, the government had to create a balance in order to reconcile both of these rights. In 1964, the ruling of New York Times v Sullivan helped set the standard by which the U.S. court system judges cases of defamation. In the case, Montgomery County Commissioner L.B. Sullivan claimed that the New York Times had published an advertisement that defamed his character. The court ruled that a defamation case having to do with a political figure must present evidence proving that the publication knew that the information was false. This ruling is called the “actual malice” standard.

However, the way in which a private person’s defamation suit is determined is different. In Gertz v. Welch (1973), a magazine called American Opinion published an article stating that a Chicago attorney named Elmer Gertz had helped frame a police officer. The article contained several incorrect statements. The original court told Gertz that he had to have proof of “actual malice.” Gertz disagreed, saying that he was a private person, not a public figure, so the same guidelines could not be used to determine his case. Gertz appealed to the Supreme Court. They determined that “so long as they do not impose liability without fault, the States may define for themselves the appropriate standard of liability for a publisher or broadcaster of defamatory falsehood injurious to a private individual.”

These cases changed the way in which defamation suits are handled. Publications cannot say whatever they want about people, but people cannot take everything written about them to court either. If such events had never occurred, many publications and reporters in the U.S. would not write the way in which they do. Controversial subjects would never be covered and stories would generate much less feeling among their readers. The First Amendment forced the government to allow publications the freedom to present facts and truths about people. Without it, reporters and writers wouldn’t be able to say anything about anybody without having a suit filed against them.

Because of the First Amendment, newspapers and publications are able to do their jobs – gather the facts and inform people of the truth.