Word: libeler
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Tammany politician who once threatened to sue a newspaper for libel was advised by his lawyer: "Never sue. They might prove it on you." Last week in Nanticoke, Pa. (pop. 20,160) another politician proved the wisdom of this advice. Until he ran for mayor, Anthony B. Dreier, a 47-year-old ex-coal miner, never made much of a mark around coal-mining Nanticoke. But he proved to be an aggressive campaigner, charged that the politicians in power were allowing horse books, slot machines and punchboards to run in Nanticoke, was elected mayor in 1949 on an antigambling "Reform...
...Walter Winchell, Westbrook Pegler. When U.S.A. Confidential began making headlines and the bestseller lists, Wechsler spotted ideal subjects for his next serial scorcher: the book's authors, the New York Mirror's editor, Jack Lait, and its nightclub columnist, Lee Mortimer, who are already defendants in twelve libel suits for their offhand reporting (TIME...
Jack Lait, editor of the New York Daily Mirror, and his nightclub columnist Lee Mortimer are old hands at libel. In their first three "Confidential" books they picked up no fewer than six libel suits.* By last week their latest slapdash gutter-side view of America, U.S.A. Confidential (TIME, March 17), was well on its way to outstripping the other three. A $1,000,000 suit brough by Maine's Senator Margaret Chase Smith, for bringing her into "scandals as an associate of and sympathizer with Communists," was the sixth in three months. The others...
...most states of the U.S., it is dangerous for a careless or malicious newspaper to libel individuals, but little risk at all to libel such groups as Negroes, Jews, Catholics. Only three states (Illinois, Massachusetts and Indiana) ban all libels against racial or religious blocs. Reason: most states have wisely decided that a group libel law can be as dangerous a restriction on freedom of press & speech as it is a convenient weapon to shut up hatemongers. Newsmen have generally opposed such laws for the same reason. But last week the U.S. Supreme Court decided otherwise...
Justices Black, Douglas, Jackson and Reed dissented. The law, wrote Black, opens the door to censorship of newspapers, movies, radio, etc. "Sugar coating" the law, he said, by calling it a "group libel law . . . does not make the censorship less deadly." The minority was joined by a chorus of newspaper editorials. Said the Washington Post: "The court's decision . . . raises a disturbing question as to where such censorship will end." Added the Chicago Tribune, which rarely sees eye to eye with the Post: "The Illinois statute . . . could be interpreted to outlaw books and plays about Okies. To call something...