New York Times v. Sullivan: Press Freedom & the First Amendment

[00:00:00][Music] this film is a project of the Leonor Attenborough Institute for civics of the Annenberg public policy center of the University of Pennsylvania in partnership with the Annenberg Foundation trust at sunnylands citizenship is every person's highest calling [Music] [Music] my father you're watching iconic images of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s America watched these images on the evening news as they were beamed via satellite TV sets across the country people were able to sit in their living rooms and look at dogs biting people and kids in Birmingham they were able to see people sitting in getting things thrown at them I remember the coverage of the Birmingham Bridge March where they set dogs on the demonstrators that moment was a galvanizing moment in American Life um because people watch those dogs attack those demonstrators and they knew in their hearts that we had to do something about it the nation was witnessing American citizens fighting against segregation and for their equal rights but look closely we're also witnessing another right at work right before our eyes freedom of the press were there no press to publicize the kind of rabid hostility to change I don't think the Civil Rights Movement would have succeeded people could see whites hiss and booing and attacking and there was a national revulsion no television cameras no press no big day it doesn't happen it was the press that made us Spectators to that that changed the political climate of the country this is the story of one of the Supreme Court's most important cases about freedom of the press and the First Amendment it was very important to the framers of the Constitution that we have a free and vibrant press but how do you weigh the importance of freedom of the press of holding public officials accountable against the harm reporting might do to the reputation of public officials what kind of speech does the First Amendment actually protect and how do you keep the public informed about things their officials might not wanted to know democracy doesn't work unless you have a population that is concerned with what that government is doing especially in an age when government has so much power [Music] I guess you have to remember that growing up in Montgomery everything in Montgomery in Alabama in the South was completely segregated Fred gray is an attorney in Montgomery Alabama he represented Martin Luther King Rosa Parks and the leaders of the Montgomery Bus Boycott the Civil Rights movement's first major campaign against segregation segregation was just a way of life there were two worlds that was a black world and that was a white World segregation was the total separation of the races the only thing the races shared were the same sewage system the same water system and the streets men seeing separate water fountains everywhere you went it meant that if you went to the crystal hamburger place and wanted a hamburger while you were downtown you had to stand at the counter at the End by the cash register or go in the back and ask if you could have a hamburger then you had to take it outside and stand on the sidewalk and eat it blacks in the South had not progressed they were subject to constant indignities to constant injury from oppressive loss and I say segregation George Wallace had gotten elected by saying never never or never whites were deceiving themselves that blacks wanted the less and equal situation thousands of activists set out to disrupt life under segregation black women say we're not riding in the back of the bus anymore and they start the Montgomery Bus Boycott Dr King leads that and turns it into a huge movement in the south for the elimination of Jim Crow and for voting rights for blacks it was one of journalism's Finest Hours here's the thing segregation had been legal but it was reinforced through violence like lynchings bombings and beatings that violence was exposed by peaceful non-violent demonstrators and journalists from all over the country were there to report it sunlight is the best disinfectant it tells people what's going on in the country one thing that history teach press is doing its job it's making powerful people mad if the Free Press is not making powerful power then they're not doing what they should do now the moment you make powerful people mad they want to come back and shut you down journalists put themselves In Harm's Way to cover the story sometimes those in favor of segregation tried to stop them by using violence people in the South blame the press for stirring up Northern opposition several journalists were beaten severely and sometimes they tried to prevent reporters from covering the story by using the courts on March 29 1960 a group called the committee to defend Martin Luther King and the struggle for freedom in the South took out a full-page ad in the New York Times to raise money to defend Dr King against a perjury charge the ad was called Heed their Rising voices and it was sort of what we would Now call an advertorial because it was an essay signed by dozens of people including Marlon Brando and Eleanor Roosevelt it was meant to inform people about the Civil Rights Movement to see contributions to support the civil rights movement and told the story about certain incidents that had occurred in Montgomery Alabama that involved demonstrations they were protesting the treatment that Martin Luther King was receiving in the South so they listed all all the horrible ways that the South was trying to shut down Dr King and they said you must give us money so that we can defend against this down in Montgomery the ad in the times eventually came to the attention of the police commissioner l b Sullivan when Sullivan read the ad he was furious at how it portrayed the actions of his police force in response to civil rights demonstrations and even though no Alabama officials were named in the ad Sullivan decided anyone in Montgomery who read the ad would think it was about him the argument was that people would understand that he was responsible for bringing about the acts that they were criticizing Sullivan said even though I wasn't named in this ad this was really directed at me because these are my police that allegedly did these things to Martin Luther King he then sues reliable in a local Court libel is a written statement that makes a false album about an individual that damages his or her reputation people who bring libel cases are usually people who have a lot at stake with their reputation in fact another word for libel is defamation to the fame to harm someone's reputation and libel and defamation are not considered free speech so historically the Supreme Court has said that there are certain categories of speech that we're not protected by the First Amendment the First Amendment isn't meant to encourage lying or false statements designed to harm someone's reputation so this is simple right lb Sullivan felt wrong so he sued to clear his name but it turned out that a lot of men brought a lot of libel suits against a lot of press covering the Civil Rights Movement what was going on this is a strategy that had been worked out throughout the South the theory was that if you could threaten newspapers that if they published these stories they were going to be sued in Alabama or in Mississippi and hostile juries and hold them liable for very large damage Awards this was to basically deter newspapers from publishing any stories about segregation and the the libel Doctrine was being used to achieve that goal lb Sullivan sued the New York Times for 500 000 an astronomical amount for that time but that was just a fraction of the total the times was facing in libel suits from Southern officials because the governor of Alabama announced he was going to sue for five hundred thousand dollars others jumped in and suddenly the New York Times was looking at seven million dollars in lawsuits and they weren't alone by the mid-1960s officials across the South had sued news organizations reliable for a total of nearly 300 million dollars and this is 1964. 300 million dollars is enough to put the newspapers out of business by awarding huge damage Awards institutions like the New York Times And The Washington Post the Philadelphia Enquirer Chicago Tribune would simply stop covering these stories the goal was to shut up those who were saying negative things about the state of Alabama or Mississippi or Georgia and so basically what was at stake was the freedom of the press in addition to the times lb Sullivan sued four activists from Alabama Ralph Abernathy Solomon Seeley Fred Shuttlesworth and Joseph Lowery the only Alabama residents who signed the ad I ended up being one of the lawyers to represent them if it had been just with the New York Times the case would have been transferred to the federal court but if you had some local Alabama residents in the case then it would have to be tried in the local Circuit Court of Montgomery County and in court in Alabama the New York Times chance of winning we're not so great it was a setup from the very beginning that they were going to lose the southern jurors were very likely to be unsympathetic there were virtually no African-American jurors if any in these cases and the judges were very hostile to the federal government of the Northern attitudes about segregation the times not only couldn't rely on the Alabama Court System it had trouble finding a lawyer who would represent them in Alabama libel laws tended to favor those making the libel claim to defend itself the times would have to prove that every word of the ad was factually correct and that was a problem there were some inaccuracies in the ads the ad stated some students had been expelled from an Alabama State University for leading a demonstration when it was really for demanding service at a Montgomery Lunch Counter the government had the State Board of Education expelled those students stated that police had surrounded a demonstration in a ring they didn't ring the demonstration there were a couple of police standing there that protesting students had been singing My Country Tis of Thee and in fact they were singing The Star-Spangled Banner and that police had arrested Martin Luther King on Petty charges seven times it only rested him four times even though the rest of the ad was correct those mistakes made the ad libelous in Alabama lb Sullivan won his lawsuit against the New York Times the jury said the First Amendment does not protect libel and the false statements in the ad no matter how small or defamation since all these things were not true then they printed false material that hurt his reputation a half a million dollars they gave Solomon a verdict of a half a million dollars even though his name was not even mentioned in the article the verdict was particularly hard on the four civil rights leaders from Alabama while the New York Times had money to appeal the alabamans had their assets seized they sold their cause because they couldn't stop the judgment and in aveneth is crazy owned an interest in some property they sold his interest they lost in the Alabama Supreme Court leaving them only one option [Music] okay before we get to the Supreme Court let's take a step back to look at the tension between a free press and allegations of libel like way back when the British ruled America in 1735 and the case of John Peter's anger John Peter's anger was a publisher in New York and he was a strong critic of the British rulers who were appointed by the king and who ruled New York as a kind of colonial fiefdom he published this diatribe against the governor and at the time libel laws were written to protect the people and power they tend to favor established people with strong reputations and strong presence in this Society so the king the king's justices the richest guy in the country so when the governor of New York called John Peter's anger before a jury the law was on the governor's side in fact at the time it didn't even matter if what Zenger had published was true or not if it damaged the governor's reputation Zenger was guilty of libel the judge told the jury if you find that this man published this article you have to find him guilty but the jury ignored those instructions and to the cheers of the crowded courtroom the jury found Zenger not guilty the jury said basically we don't believe that truthful information should be punished under these circumstances and the jury refused to convict zanger zanger was acquitted and that was the beginning of press freedom in the United States it speaks to the tradition in this country that we speak truth to power and question what people in Authority are doing John Peter zenger's fight to print the truth about public officials started a free press in America and a half century later that press questioned the king during the American Revolution when it was over the framers put that freedom in the Bill of Rights the First Amendment provides that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press and it's a net guarantee that the freedom of both speech and press are embodied in the First Amendment the only way a democratic government can be controlled is if there's an informed populace Jefferson said democracy presumes a virtuous enlightened people an enlightened means you have to be informed so the Constitution gave the press the freedom to print the truth about public officials and over time laws about freedom of the press and libel developed in each state no major freedom of the press case reached the Supreme Court until the 20th century before times V Sullivan there was really only one important Free Press case and that was in 1931 in a case called near versus Minnesota in near versus Minnesota the Court ruled that government officials couldn't use prior restraint that is they couldn't prevent the Press from publishing stories before they came out except maybe in times of War near versus Minnesota is the case that stands for the proposition that the government cannot shut you up in advance but government officials still had the option to sue for libel if something in the article was inaccurate or untrue the general principle is they can't shut you down but they can punish you later and by the time the New York Times versus Sullivan reached the Supreme Court in January 1964 public officials across the South were suing and suing and suing newspapers television and radio stations reliable over honest mistakes and the slightest inaccuracies to make them pay covering the civil rights movement and even if the stories themselves didn't in fact contain false or defamatory statements Southern juries understanding what was going on were finding the defendant's libel and awarding huge damage Awards and the goal of this strategy was to deter newspapers from writing stories about the Civil Rights Movement and therefore preventing the nation from actually knowing what was going on so what was at stake in the case is whether or not the newspapers could continue to cover the Civil Rights Movement without um risking massive Financial violations which would make the newspapers afraid to continue to cover the movement at the Supreme Court lawyers for the New York Times tried a very bold argument it's a very interesting oral argument because the attorney for the New York Times knew that he had no precedent to support him their argument to the Supreme Court is that if newspapers are afraid to tell tell true stories because of the risk that a hostile jury might find a falsehood then they will be deterred from publishing the truth Sullivan's lawyers argued that the case was open and shut Sullivan's lawyers are arguing the case that the Supreme Court has said repeatedly that that false statements and defamatory statements are not protected by the First Amendment and to go beyond that would be to give constitutional protection to false statements that defame people and that's completely perverse because we've always understood that that's not the goal of the First Amendment so the justices had to decide this really important case that had some elements that were a little distracting for one it was an ad not an article written by a reporter ads like it appeared elsewhere not just the New York Times Sullivan's name was never mentioned in the ad and there was no clear precedent for the court to turn to but on March 9 1964 the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of the New York Times the decision was written by Justice William Brennan Justice Brennan acknowledged that the ad and the times contained errors but ruled that this was not enough to prove libel mistakes were inevitable in a free and open debate in order to prove libel Brennan wrote you must prove actual malice actual malice actual malice that is knowledge that it is false or with Reckless disregard of whether it was false or not and there had to be a deliberate falsehood on the part of the press actual malice is remarkable protection for individuals who want to write something critical about government what has to be proved is either knowing falsity which is that I know that the information is false or Reckless disregard for falsity which means that I should have been suspicious that the information is in fact incorrect that was a a dramatic shift in the way the court generally had understood these categories of speech that had previously been seen as simply not part of the freedom of speech that was protected by the First Amendment and it probably would not have come out that way if it hadn't been for the Court's understanding of the way in which defamation law was being abused by the Southern States in this context it's not the to prove that something is true it's the powerful person's job to prove that something is false so it's very very difficult that's a very high bar that the United States Supreme Court said in Sullivan so it changed the whole law of liable and uh now almost every law student instead is the case of Sullivan versus New York Times and most people don't realize that it started as a result of the Civil Rights Movement in attempting to silence the Press Sullivan and other officials in the South had made the press's voice much much louder they covered it like a blanket I mean it was one of the great stories of our time there were newspaper reporters all over the South and in large part the victory of the Civil Rights Movement is a tribute to the fact that the Free Press continued to do its job the courts rulian Sullivan only applied to government officials But as time went on the court expanded its press protections to apply to libel claims from other public figures like celebrities in other words you don't have to be a government official to turn yourself into an important public figure and so times V Solomon applies to government officials and to public figures and as our idea of media has expanded since the 1960s the meaning of the Sullivan decision has expanded with it and now if if you are engaged in a public debate about something and you're concerned about an issue in your community and you have a Blog and you have 153 people who read it this case protects you too it takes a very robust view of free speech it it Champions an understanding of free speech that says we rely upon the American citizens uh to be actively engaged in the search for truth and not to rely upon government to tell them what true and what what's false for those who know anything about press law this is one of the most important decisions ever handed down we want the press to not be fearful because we want the press to report what the people should know and you must constantly constantly examine your Society examine yourself to see whether or not Justice is prevailing in your society and the Press is very very important in that regard democracy Works only if we know what the government is doing and we we rely on the press to tell us that [Music] [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music]