Air America dumped in Portland

[A. Joseph Ross]

On 23 Sep 2004 at 1:33, Joseph Pappalardo wrote:

> 
> 
> >>"New York Times v. Sullivan."
> 
> Can you give us a quickie on what this was all about?

This was a U.S. Supreme Court decision in the 1960s, which held, in essense, that in order 
to protect the freedom of public discourse, a public figure had to prove "malice" in order to 
prevail in a lawsuit for libel or slander.   "Malice" means either a deliberate or a reckless 
disregard for the truth.

Clinton aide Sydney Bloomenthal and his wife did sue the Drudge Report for libel, when it 
reported falsely that he was an adjudicated wife-beater, and Matt Drudge admitted that he 
never bothered to check the truth of anything he published.  They dropped the suit after 
Clinton left office, mainly because they'd had enough of the cost and difficulty of litigation.  I 
for one would love to see a some libel judgments against some of these characters who 
deliberately lie.

-- 
A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                           617.367.0468
 15 Court Square, Suite 210                 lawyer@attorneyross.com
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