You’ll almost certainly hear a lot about NYT v Sullivan in the coming election cycle — the landmark 1964 case setting the boundaries for defamation cases by public figures has already come up in our coverage a few times this year, and the “actual malice” standard it lays out is at the heart of the big Fox News election denial case. Vox has a good explainer on how Ron DeSantis is attacking it head-on — and weakening press freedom along the way:
Without Sullivan, government officials could potentially use defamation suits to impose financially devastating liability on their political enemies — which is what an Alabama official tried to do in Sullivan itself. And a wealthy individual who disagrees with a newspaper’s coverage could potentially fund lawsuits targeting any false statement made by that newspaper, no matter how minor, until the sheer cost of defending against these suits bankrupts the paper.
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