slander

Should the U.S. Enforce Stricter Libel Laws?

Angelo Franco

It wasn’t until the celebrated landmark case, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, of 1964 that completely redefined libel laws nationally. The case came up against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, when in 1960 the Times published an editorial ad sponsored by the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King Jr., which included details of brutality and abuses that Black students suffered at the hands of the police, particularly in Montgomery, Alabama. L.B. Sullivan, Montgomery’s police commissioner, sued the Times for defamation and demanded a retraction even though he was not mentioned by name.

A ‘Post-Truth’ Society and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Romin W. Tafarodi

The following year, 2017, was notable for the addition of a neo-Orwellian phrase to the post-truth glossary. It began on Jan 21, with White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer claiming of Trump’s inaugural ceremony, “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration – period – both in person and around the globe.” The claim was promptly fact-checked and cast into doubt. Nonetheless, indefatigable Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway defended Spicer on television the next day, claiming he was simply providing “alternative facts.”

Why Won’t the Armed Forces Network Dump Rush Limbaugh’s Show?

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

The Pentagon’s defiant pledge to stick with the Rush Limbaugh show, no matter what, bumps up against a few hard and insulting realities. The Armed Forces Network that carries the Limbaugh show is not a private business that can do whatever it pleases with its money, personnel and policy. Every penny of the armed forces’ bloated budget comes from taxpayers. And since the military is not a democracy, and decisions are made top down, there was never any chance that taxpayers would have any say about the use of their money to subsidize the blatant bias of one radio jock.

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