Free Speech: Why is The New York Times v. Sullivan such a precedent setting case for the American media?

In 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that in the mass media, “public officials in a libel case must prove actual malice” (Biagi 306). This ruling was determined in the case of The New York Times v. Sullivan in which The Committee to Defend Martin Luther King Jr.'s New York Times Advertisement. Although he was not mentioned by name, L.B. Sullivan, the commissioner in Montgomery that was involved in the case, felt that the ad was directed towards him. As a result, he sued the newspaper for libel. In the first case, Sullivan won. However, the Times appealed to the Supreme Court which found that some of the information in the ad was misleading, that it was not a , “deliberately lie”, which would prove actual malice (307).

This case protects all areas of American mass media from being sued by everyone that they write a negative story about just as long as it is the truth. For example, it protects whistleblowers, like Woodward and Bernstein, and allows for the media to report on controversial stories without fear of prosecution. Additionally, thanks to this ruling, magazines, like Star, and television shows, like TMZ, are free to discuss the details of the crazy lives of celebrities, just as long as there is some basis to the story.