Word: libeler
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...flurry of headline-grabbing libel cases over the past several years, most followed by protracted legal preliminaries, prompted fears about the effectiveness of the First Amendment. Now that the dust has settled, however, it seems clear that the news media have prevailed, at least in the court of law. While many news organizations have lost their first-round libel verdicts, the media have won most major cases that went through the full appellate process. Moreover, while juries have rendered more than 30 verdicts in excess of $1 million since 1980, according to the Libel Defense Resource Center, not one judgment...
...plaintiffs so often persist, and why do juries find for them in cases that judges then throw out? Perhaps because jurors, like much of the rest of the public, think the press needs some restraining. Or perhaps because libel law is simply hard for laymen to grasp. While the target of a tough story may feel that he is the beleaguered party, in libel law he becomes the plaintiff and takes on the legal burden of disproving the offending story. In the conflict of rights between freedom of the press and preservation of reputation, the legal scales are deliberately tipped...
...press primarily as part of an establishment from which individuals need protection. It instead sees the press as standing in for the individual citizen in keeping government and other institutions honest, and allows plenty of margin for genuine error -- even when the error is damaging, intrusive and unconfessed. "Libel law gives an enormous protection to the media, which, when it's explained to people, they don't much like," says Washington Attorney Bruce Sanford. "The public loves the ((media)) product but hates the process...
Whatever the odds, libel plaintiffs, especially public figures, often contend that suing is the only way to clear their reputations, that their denials will ring hollow unless accompanied by a court suit. "If I am elected President," says Robertson, "how could I ever order a young American into combat if the record is not absolutely clear that I never shirked military duty?" In other instances an embattled public official may calculate that litigation is the best way to discourage further damaging coverage. Inquirer Executive Editor Gene Roberts believes this is happening in Pennsylvania. Says he: "Public officials are using libel...
...particularly leery of stories about individuals or organizations known to be prone to sue. Surveys by the Columbia Journalism Review and other organizations have found the impact greatest on smaller publications, on marginal stories and in indirect ways like excessive editorial scrutiny that can discourage reportorial enterprise. After repeated libel suits (which he has almost always won), Irvin Lieberman, publisher of a group of suburban Philadelphia newspapers, has "emasculated" his papers' investigative zeal. "I'm a hell raiser, and I think a lot of hell needs to be raised," he says. "But I can't jeopardize my family business just...