Posted on 03/13/2022 3:45:38 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
The lawyers and First Amendment scholars who have made it their life’s work to defend the well-established but newly threatened constitutional protections for journalists don’t usually root for the media to lose in court.
But that’s what is happening with a series of recent defamation lawsuits against right-wing outlets that legal experts say could be the most significant libel litigation in recent memory.
The suits, which are being argued in several state and federal courts, accuse Project Veritas, Fox News, The Gateway Pundit, One America News and others of intentionally promoting and profiting from false claims of voter fraud during the 2020 election, and of smearing innocent civil servants and businesses in the process.
If the outlets prevail, these experts say, the results will call into question more than a half-century of precedent that created a clear legal framework for establishing when news organizations can be held liable for publishing something that’s not true.
Libel cases are difficult to prove in the United States. Among other things, public figures have to show that someone has published what the Supreme Court has called a “calculated falsehood” or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.
But numerous First Amendment lawyers said they thought the odds were strong that at least one of these outlets would suffer a rare loss at trial, given the extensive and well-documented evidence against them.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This could get interesting...win against ‘right wing’ news sites and the media becomes FAIR GAME for people like Trump who has been slandered and lied about for the past 7 years now.
“Investigative journalists” don’t like to be investigated by real investigative journalists.
These legal cases against different media tend to drag on for years. Either side hoping the other one loses enough interest or enough money. No pun intended.
Just because Project Veritas, Fox News, The Gateway Pundit and One America News caught the prog media in outright lies AND mostly on video does not mean they can just go around blabbing it out to the world like it was news.
Everybody knows prog media has been making up lies for decades, there is nothing “newsworthy” about it!
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20 states have announced proof of voter problems/fraud.
Media is complicit.
When or lose, PV etc. will have 5 to 7 figure legal fees. The process is the punishment.
The DNC US intelligence agency’s and MSM are revolving doors with many paychecks for those so called journalists.
The narrative is driven by money.
OK, the burden of proof is on them to PROVE that the claims are false. Hope it comes back to bite them!
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