"First Amendment scholars" cheer against a free press? A strange piece in The New York Times—headlined "First Amendment Scholars Want to See the Media Lose These Cases"—delves into defamation lawsuits filed against Fox News, One America News, Project Veritas, The Gateway Pundit, and other right-wing media outlets. The suits accuse these publications of intentionally spreading false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election and profiting from these claims.
To win, plaintiffs have to show that these outlets acted with "actual malice"—that is, deliberately spread misinformation or acted with "reckless disregard" for facts.
"The high legal bar to prove defamation had become an increasingly sore subject well before the 2020 election, mainly but not exclusively among conservatives, prompting calls to reconsider the broad legal immunity that has shielded journalists since the landmark 1964 Supreme Court decision New York Times v. Sullivan," notes the Times.
Critics include politicians like former President Donald J. Trump and Sarah Palin, who lost a defamation suit against The Times last month and has asked for a new trial, as well as two Supreme Court justices, Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch.
[First Amendment lawyer Lee] Levine said a finding of liability in the cases making their way through the courts could demonstrate that the bar set by the Sullivan case did what it was supposed to: make it possible to punish the intentional or extremely reckless dissemination of...
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