Word: press
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...many court watchers believed that reasoning would stand up in the Supreme Court. Writing for the majority, Justice Byron White asserted that the press already has a great deal of protection against libel suits. Ever since the landmark New York Times vs. Sullivan case in 1964, public officials-and, since 1966, public figures like Colonel Herbert-must prove "actual malice." That means that a journalist consciously lied or had serious doubts about the accuracy of his report. Sullivan thus made it essential to focus on the reporter's state of mind, argued White. Apparently, he added, no journalist...
...must answer questions about what they were thinking when they prepared reports that resulted in libel suits. "The courts can take your notes, the Government can take your telephone records, and the police can march into the newsroom," said Jack Landau of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "Now libel lawyers can go into your brain. I'd like to know what's left." Landau's fears were widely shared by journalists. But this time, their outcries may be unwarranted...
...majority opinion, Justice White did warn judges to be careful that the discovery process is not used for harassment or delay, in press cases or any others. Indeed, it may be that lengthy pretrial discovery, as Lando endured, is a much greater threat to freedom of the press than questioning a reporter's state of mind. Said Columbia Law School Professor Benno Schmidt: "Knowing that someone could tie you up for days in pretrial discovery at huge expense might be enough reason not to publish a story...
...inflation policy is not working. Admitted a top policymaker: "We cannot go on expecting the wage and price guidelines to hold." Since President Carter has ruled out mandatory controls, the only other policy choice, in the view of White House advisers, is to raise interest rates. Leaks to the press and other pressures on Miller to tighten money became so obvious before the Open Market Committee meeting that Carter sent notes to Blumenthal and Schultze telling them to stop it. The President did not necessarily oppose the Fed's raising interest rates, but he did not want the voters...
Because he concentrates so heavily on owners and proprietors, Halberstam's portrait of the press is full of big money. This presence unquestionably adds spice. And his guarded sympathy for publishers also offers a useful corrective to many books about the press. Seeking profits, in Halberstam's story, is no crime; a news organization that goes broke can no longer do any harm or good. "It was a curious irony of capitalism," he writes, "that among the only outlets rich enough and powerful enough to stand up to an overblown, occasionally reckless, otherwise unchallenged central government were journalistic institutions that...