This is my freshman Mass Communications final project. The animation effects did not work.

1. DEFAMATION OF The Law and
How It Has
CHARACTER Progressed
By Danielle Turner
December 3, 2012

2. THE FIRST AMENDMENT
 “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging
the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the
people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government
for a redress of grievances .”

3. WHAT IS DEFAMATION?
 Defamatory speech is defined as “untrue declarations about
private citizens that might damage their reputations”
(Straubhaar, 447).
 Libel is defamatory speech that is written.
 Slander is defamatory speech that is spoken.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tg8FnWO -Ck

4. Defamation is extremely HOW TO
PROVE
hard to prove in court. DEFAMATION
OF
The following link CHARACTER
explains why.
http://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=Xpzybcswpxw

5. DEFAMATION OF CHARACTER IS ILLEGAL, BUT
HOW HAS IT BEEN DETERMINED THROUGHOUT
THE YEARS?
 New York Times v. Sullivan  AP v. Walker and Curtis
 In the year 1960, the civil rights Publishing v. Butts
groups ran an ad in the New York
Times that contained errors in  These two cases presented in
reporting the abuse that had been 1967, extended the Sullivan ruling
inflicted upon protestors in the on “actual malice” to cover well -
South. “The ad made Southern known public figures, not just
authorities look violent and criminal governmental public official
– so L.B. Sullivan, police (Harrower, 145).
commissioner in Montgomery, Ala.,  Walker sued The Associated Press
sued the Times for libel” (Harrower, for a story that claimed he
145). encouraged a riot. But, since the
 Sullivan lost his case because the story was written under deadline
Supreme Court ruled that “debate on pressure, the court ruled that the
public issues should be uninhibited, errors the article had were
robust and wide open. inadvertent (Harrower, 145).
 Basically, if your going to be in
politics or in the public view, you
 Butts filed a libel suit after The
ought to be tough enough to handle Saturday Evening Post alleged he‟d
criticism no matter how mean or fixed a game. Since the
untrue it is. “sloppy reporting had ignored
warning of inaccuracy,” the court
ruled that this was actual malice
(Harrower, 145).

6. ACTUAL MALICE?
Malice as defined Malice as defined
by dictionary.com… by media law…
 According to  According to media law
dictionary.com, malice and ethics, actual malice
is “ill will, spite, is knowing that what one
spitefulness; animosity, is printing is false and
blatantly disregarding the
enmity; malevolence;
truth and, therefore,
venom, hate, hatred;
meaning actual harm to
bitterness, rancor.” the person or group the
defamatory speech is
about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40OaEWVNOjg
Please follow link to hear a short song on actual malice!

7. COURT CASES CONTINUED…
 Gertz v. Welch  Hutchinson v. Proxmire
 This Supreme Court decision  “ Sen. William Proxmire used
made it so that private citizens to hand out „Golden Fleece
do not have to prove actual
malice. They need only to prove
Awards‟ to agencies guilty of
negligence. wasting tax dollars. In 1975,
 “In 1973, attorney Elmer Gertz he gave an award to Ronald
sued Robert Welch‟s Hutchinson, a monkey
conservative magazine for libel researcher at a hospital.”
after it called Gertz a  “Hutchinson sued Proxmire
„Communist‟ for representing for libel and won. The Court
clients who sued the police. The ruled that Hutchinson was not
Court ruled that Gertz‟s rights
had been violated because, a public figure and his
though well known, he was still a research was not a matter of
private citizen, not a public public controversy.
figure” (Harrower, 145).
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=aHzAYVkbxzs

8. http://www.youtube.com/w
atch?v=-QYLHQ5qydo Po lit ic al
C o r re c t nes s h a s
i n fringed u p o n
Follow the link above to see the rights of
Fr e edo m o f
S p e e c h i n m a ny
the video on a boy who got p l a c es s u c h a s
s c h o o ls a l l
in serious trouble for a c ro s s t h e U S A .
making a stand against
homosexuality at his public
high school.

9. WORKS CITED
 http://dictionary.reference.com /
 Harrower, Tim. Inside Repor ting: A Practical Guide to the Craf t
of Journalism. 3rd edition. New York City: McGraw Hill
Company , 2010. Print .
 Straubhaar, Joseph, Robert LaRose, and Lucinda Davenport.
Media Now: Understanding Media, Culture, and Technology .
7th edition. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012.
Print.
 All videos are courtesy of www.youtube.com