Rethinking Libel, Defamation, and Press Accountability

by Carson Holloway

With its ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), the Supreme Court severely limited the ability of public officials to sue for libel. The Court thus departed from a traditional understanding that had regarded libel as unprotected by the First Amendment and that had therefore imposed a salutary restraint on the press by holding journalists legally liable for publishing defamatory falsehoods. Today the press faces practically no legal consequences for defaming public figures, an expansive category that includes not only public officials but even many private citizens. The Supreme Court should correct its error, restore the original and traditional meaning of the First Amendment, and thereby protect our democracy from the outsized, underserved, and destructive power that a mendacious press now exercises over the public mind and our politics.

Paperback

Published September 21, 2022

About the author

Carson L. Holloway teaches political science at the U of Nebraska & was a trustee of Shimer College & a visiting fellow at Princeton's James Madison Program. He's recipient of a John M. Olin Foundation faculty fellowship & of grants from the H.B. Earhart* & Wm E. Simon Foundations. He's a member of the Family Research Council, American Inst for History Education, CatholicVote.org & Board Member of NHE-PAC (home educators) & director of The Assn for the Study of Free Institutions (freestudies.org). He's contributed articles to The National Review, Catholic Social Science Review & The Witherspoon Inst. [*Earhart's provided funding to European organisations promoting right-wing/neoliberal agendas. Regular recipients include the Inst of Economic Affairs think-tank & the Atlanticist Centre for Strategic Studies at the Univ of Reading headed by former Reagan official Colin S. Gray.]