Kavanaugh And Thomas Could End Media Protection From Libel

Winning!

I don’t think Thomas is going to be on the court much longer.
He may have been waiting for another conservative to join the Supreme Court. I’ve been hearing that Judge Thomas is past ready to retire.

Now if someone could just convince RBG to retire and write that Great American Novel, we’ll be all set for a generation.

I hope so. I don’t like that the press can write anything, whatever lies they want, and face no consequences. Wronged parties are left with no recourse, or rather face a hurdle so high to jump that they don’t even bother trying. It’s wrong.

Perhaps, but Kavanaugh’s reverence for precedent leads me to believe it probably won’t happen. We’ll see.

bump

If this means the media will be liable for slander, man am I on board.

What they have gotten away with SHOULD BE A CRIME.

It’s time to limit uncorroborated media attacks on anyone. I am afraid the law will be as thick as Obamacare and unwieldy or unusable if not worded properly.

It must contain provisions for vile accusations or vile mocking (yes, I revere comedy but I’ve come to realize there should be a limit to barrages of hatred against anyone, day in day out), that they need backing up by corroboration or must pass some kind of bullying test.

But it must allow for normal eyewitness or experience speech, so that anyone can say to a friend or a reporter “I saw Mr X do Y at the Z.” We must retain freedom of speech.

Rose colored glasses.
The head of scotus is corrupted or just extorted.

I hope that, throughout Kavanaugh’s long tenure on the SC, he NEVER forgets what the democrats did to him.

Notorious works out like Schwarzenegger apparently. Who knew??

https://www.businessinsider.com/ruth-bader-ginsburgs-workout-routine-2018-6#you-do-multiple-interval-sets-and-repetitions-for-each-exercise-6

While reporters are protected from revealing their sources, publishers that knowingly participated in the conspiracy with congressional staffers are not. The conspiracy is criminal and does not carry first amendment protection.

Make it Ex Post Facto for Harry Reid too.

Do you believe it’s a corrupt thought to want the press to have to stick to the truth, and not slander innocent people, be they public figures or citizens?

That would make Sarah Palin quite happy.

In New York Times, v. Sullivan, the Court placed great weight on the inherent ability of truth to naturally prevail. Seeing that erroneous statements are “inevitable in free debate,” the Court refused to uphold the libel charge brought forth from the lower court. Instead, it held that the importance of supporting “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open” debate that may include “vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials” was more important than any protections it could give to public officials.
The Supreme Court consequently reversed the lower court’s ruling and imposed a new standard for successful libel actions against public officials. According to the Court, in order for a public official to prevail in a libel action it must show that the defendant acted “with knowledge that the statement was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not,” a standard known as “actual malice,” or “New York Times malice.”

Although accepted as bedrock in American jurisprudence dealing with public figures and elected officials, this case has been the source of great discussion amongst legal scholars. Is this near-impossible standard too high? Was the Court’s fear of self-censorship justified, or does the press and political opponents need a little self-restraint? Is the OK Corral attitude of the Court the better approach, or does such a cavalier attitude muddy speech and make the situation worse for voters? To this day, consensus on these questions does not exist.

The First Amendment did not create freedom of the press, it merely fixed in place the freedom that the press already enjoyed. That is - as Scalia noted - the press was subject to laws against libel before the enactment of the First Amendment, and it was still subject to those same laws afterward. So the press can be regulated - but only with a light hand and with the soundest of justifications.
For example, there is no reason why the public should accept a single monopoly press; journalists have no right to expect that the Sherman AntiTrust Act does not apply in their business. And the unifying principle of “the MSM” is the Associated Press. Essentially every major journalism outlet is a member. The very word “associated” in its name should make the AP suspect, and Adam Smith’s analysis of monopoly
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776)
applies very directly, since the AP “wire” is a virtual meeting of all its members which has been in continuous operation since before the Civil War. You have to be "naive as a babe to believe” that in over a century and a half journalists have never found common cause to the detriment of the public.
Claiming objectivity for journalism is inappropriate. I put it to you that everyone knows that “If it bleeds, it leads” is sound advice for commercial viability in journalism. Certainly every journalist knows it. Journalism is negative - and any claim that "negativity is objectivity” should be dismissed out of hand as sheer cynicism. Another argument is that no one can know that they are being objective. You can try to be objective. You can even say that you are trying to be objective - if indeed you are. But to claim that you actually are objective is to confess that you actually are not even trying to be objective. Because the effort to try must start from the assumption that might not be objective. Certainly it is arrogant to claim to possess a virtue, and claiming objectivity is no different from claiming wisdom or any classical virtue.
Journalism is negative towards society, but not towards government. In fact, anyone who is negative towards society must think “there oughta be a law” whenever they seen a failing of society. Thus, journalism inherently tends to cynicism towards society and naiveté towards government. In Common Sense, Thomas Paine asserted that society and government are often conflated but are in fact near opposites:
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil . . . - Common Sense (1776)
I put it to you that "cynicism towards society and naiveté towards government” describes socialism to a tee. Whereas American conservatism holds, with the founders of the Constitution, that

skepticism towards people in society is sufficiently justified to be an adequate rationale for having a government, but
skepticism towards people in government or benefiting from the growth of government is even more justified than skepticism towards other people in society.

The conclusion of the matter is that journalists tend to “conspire against the public” by promoting socialism. And that the wire services generally, and the AP in particular, are the nexus of their conspiracy. And, I note, the raison d'être of the wire services was the conservation of expensive telegraphy bandwidth in the wide dissemination of the news. And in the 21st Century, telegraphy bandwidth is dirt cheap.
There is such a thing as the AP Stylebook, which establishes standards for journalism. Some, perhaps most, of it is unexceptionable - for example, the “pyramid organization” of articles which demands that the most salient points of the article be articulated in the opening part of the article. But if the Stylebook proscriptions prevent the articulation of a particular political viewpoint - if for example it proscribes the term “illegal alien” to describe foreign citizens in the US without proper authorization - that is “a conspiracy against the public.” I doubt that the Stylebook explicitly proscribes the identification of the political party of a Democrat politician caught with his hands in the till, and requires it when a Republican is so charged - but “the MSM is notorious for exactly that sort of thing.
It is famously said that a law against sleeping under bridges is not neutral because it forbids both rich and poor from doing it. Just so, a ruling which makes it extremely difficult for Democrats - who essentially are never libeled - to sue, while doing “the same thing” to Republicans, who get libeled continually, is utterly unfair. That is why the NY Times v. Sullivan ruling must be overturned.
The AP should be prosecuted (or sued civilly) under Sherman - and ruined. We don’t need it, and it is anticompetitive in the one industry - discussion of current events and politics - in which competition is most significant and necessary.

Ping.

Living in a country where lawyers shop for libel cases, and are one of the largest users of libel laws, not a fan of seeing the standard going lower.

Two unrelated cancers, clogged cardiac arteries, and chemotherapy after effects add to eight decades accumulated senescence. Wonder what’s in that gold encrusted health plan?