COMM 454 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Actual Malice, Compuserve, John Birch Society
16 Dec 2016
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Classroom Notes: Lecture 3 - 9/28/15
• Defamation: Something you say or write that is negative about another person.
• Libel and Slander: Methods of getting the negative word out.
• What makes something defamatory?
o Accusing someone of a crime, someone has a disease (contagious), attacking
someone because of their reputation in the professional world, charging
someone with sexual immorality.
• Libel per quod: Libel suing in certain circumstances
• To win a defamatory case: you have to prove that the defamation is negative, not
truthful, communicated to a third party, identification, and prove some sort of fault.
• Defenses: What was said was absolutely true, saying it does not harm the reputation of
the person being defamed (feelings/emotions do not matter, it is about public effect on
your personal and professional life), privilege communication (parody/jokes/satire).
• Protected People: Political figures in congress, in the event of a heated debate. And
parodies.
• Constitutional Defense:
• Times v. Sullivan: Comes during the Civil Rights movement.
o One of the people who led the movement, published a front page ad on the
terrors of the movement, advocating for arrests to be pardoned and asking for
money.
o Alabama courts allowed for defamation case. Supreme Court established a
certain class of defamation. Defamation of public officials. You as the official
have to prove why others are wrong.
o You had to prove actual malice: you said or wrote this false and nasty thing even
though you knew it was false. Or if you should have known to the degree that
you could called it a reckless false case.
❖ You have to prove it was false, if you want to sue a public official.
o Statement of principles, all court officials agreed on this.
• New Court Cases: Determine questions that are in your mind, made a distinction
etee soethig i a espape ad i a eekl/othl agazie, et…
o Protections against the people accused of defamation are becoming stronger.
❖ Heated debate it more important than the feelings of public officials.
❖ Much more about political descent over sedition. You are questioning the
behavior of the public officials.
o 9 men decided to make it harder for people in these positions to be belittled.
• Gertz v. Welch: A decade after Times v. Sullivan.
o We are going to extend this to public figures.
o 10 Year period - court made the distinction between public officials and public
figures.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Supreme court established a certain class of defamation. You as the official have to prove why others are wrong: you had to prove actual malice: you said or wrote this false and nasty thing even though you knew it was false. Or if you should have known to the degree that you could called it a reckless false case. Heated debate it more important than the feelings of public officials. Much more about political descent over sedition. Anyone in public affairs (cid:449)o(cid:374)"t (cid:271)e a(cid:271)le to (cid:449)i(cid:374) a defa(cid:373)atio(cid:374) (cid:272)ase: 1974: gertz is a lawyer who is hired by a family who sued the police for shooting their son. Family brought civil suit, the john birch society (ultra-conservative group) objected to this suit, all of this was false: gertz was sued for defamation. Jeffrey m: did a several series of interviews. He sued because the reported put words in his mouth.
