New York Times Vs. Sullivan Essay

New York Times vs. Sullivan (1964) Have you ever been labeled by people for doing something that you did not do? Another word for that is libel, libel is a false published statement that is meant to hurt a person's reputation. New York Times vs. Sullivan is a case where Sullivan sued New York Times for libel. The case went to the Alabama court ending in failure for New York Times, the case reached a final decision in the Supreme Court. Sullivan brought the case to the court claiming that New York Times committed libel and was purposely hurting his reputation as a public official. In 1960, civil rights leaders paid New York Times to run a full page advertisement to aid the efforts of Martin Luther King Junior and help fund the Civil Rights
They argued that the newspaper advertisement was not an intention to hurt Sullivan’s reputation, there should be no reason to believe that the advertisement contained false statements. In addition, if every statement, every criticism, was thoroughly checked for accuracy, then the freedom of the press would be strictly limited. Unanimously the Supreme Court ruled in favor of New York Times, stating that the newspaper is under the protection of the first amendment, regardless of the truth. To prove that a statement is libel a public official must prove that its intent is actual malice, if it was created with the knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard for the
Though this new actual malice standard strengthens the freedom of the press, it enacts a heavy burden against people in libel cases. The actual malice standard requires heavy and firm proof in order to sue for libel, lifting the stress off of news organizations in order to publish more stories, without fear of a libel lawsuit. Now people facing defamation and libel have a harder time in keeping their reputation clean, false and malice statements now effortlessly harm the reputation of public figures. These public figures now must provide heavy and strong evidence that these statements are intentionally actual malice, making it a struggle to rise to