Word: libellous
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...principle was at stake," said TIME Managing Editor Ray Cave outside the courthouse. "The principle was, if you think your story is right, then you better defend it. We are pleased with the verdict." Sharon, on the other hand, insisted that he had been vindicated in his $50 million libel suit against TIME. "I came here to prove that TIME magazine lied," he said. "We managed to prove there was a clear defamation. We came over here to prove that they have done it with negligence and with carelessness. Altogether, I feel that we have achieved what brought us here...
Ariel Sharon vs. Time Inc. was an unprecedented case of a major foreign official suing for libel in a U.S. court over a story about his official actions. Moreover, it was a trial in which that official's government, citing security reasons, controlled information considered critical to the outcome. Throughout the trial, TIME's lawyers stressed that the Israeli government had denied the magazine access to key witnesses, documents and testimony that were ; deemed central to its defense. "It would have taken the jury only ten minutes if I could have presented all the relevant information," said Thomas Barr, chief...
...highly publicized trial also fueled the debate over the rights and responsibilities of a free press in a democracy. There is a pervasive feeling in the U.S. that the media have become increasingly unaccountable and arrogant; this is reflected in the growing number of libel suits being brought by public figures--and in a resentment by some of the vigorous way that TIME defended the truth of its story. At the same time, there is a mounting concern among journalists that the cost and effort involved in defending a libel case like the one brought by Sharon might inhibit...
...case thought that Judge Sofaer's complex definition of malice represented a departure from precedent. "It is contrary to established law to equate exaggeration with substantial factual falsity," observed Richard Winfield, a publishing specialist in the Manhattan firm of Rogers & Wells. Said Henry Kaufman, general counsel for the Libel Defense Resource Center, a New York-based media group: "It's a Rube Goldberg kind of charge. I'm concerned, in the context of this case, that jurors will turn the concept of material exaggeration or distortion around to secondguess editorial judgment...
...jury decided against TIME on "actual malice," it would then hear testimony on Sharon's reputation to determine any assessment of damages. In most libel cases, the lawyers for both sides present evidence on the plaintiff's reputation before the jury begins its overall deliberations. But after Sharon had already presented character witnesses on his own behalf, Judge Sofaer decided to split the trial; he ruled that introduction of evidence detrimental to Sharon's reputation could unfairly influence the jury on the first three issues. For Sharon to win the case, he will have to show that his reputation...