Court Opinion

ID: 9753294
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:06:57.580394+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:33.540935
License: Public Domain

O’HERN, J.,
concurring.
I concur in the judgment of the Court. I believe, however, that the Court has more closely circumscribed the fair-report privilege than the law requires.
The Court is justly troubled by the reporter’s misinterpretation of the documents, particularly the reporter’s use of the present tense in this sentence appearing in the newspaper article: “Elizabeth Fesl claims in papers filed in state Superior Court * * * that a male police lieutenant illegally fondled her * * Except for the tense of the sentence, however, that is the truth of the matter. Although Fesl never did pursue her complaint, the reporter explained that “[n]o complaints were signed against Costello in connection with the incident, however, despite a lengthy sheet of charges * *
The story was not unbalanced to the extent that contrary information discrediting Fesl was available. The story reported that one of the other involved police officers claimed that Fesl had eluded him and fellow officers. It recites that Fesl “tried to strike him with her open hand.” The account also includes statements of an independent witness: “She [Fesl] started swinging at him[.] * * * She was beating the officer ... she struck him.”
The young reporter assigned to the case may not have fully grasped the import of the various documents. The proceeding was somewhat tangled. The file in which the reporter found the statements concerned a Superior Court proceeding that was ancillary to a pending municipal-court proceeding in which Guiliano *624was a defendant. Both Guiliano and Fesl had been defendants in municipal court as a result of the 1988 arrest incident as well as potential plaintiffs in a civil proceeding arising therefrom. Guiliano also filed criminal complaints against a Seaside Heights police officer. No one could easily explain in a few words the relationship of those varied pleadings.
In Time, Inc. v. Pape, 401 U.S. 279, 91 S.Ct. 633, 28 L.Ed.2d 45 (1971), the Supreme Court explained that a reporter’s misunderstanding of a government document charging patterns of police brutality should not be a basis for imposition of damages. In that case, the Time magazine article reported as a charge by a commission investigating police brutality what was in literal terms a description by the commission of allegations in a complaint by a plaintiff in a civil-rights action. The police official, subjected to the criticism of police brutality, complained of the misinterpretation. The Supreme Court wrote: “New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964),] was premised on a recognition that, as Madison put it, ‘Some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of every thing; and in no instance is this more true than in that of the press.’ ” 401 U.S. at 290, 91 S.Ct. at 639, 28 L.Ed.2d at 53 (quoting 4 J. Elliot’s Debates on the Federal Constitution 571 (1876)).
The Court repeated the theme of New York Times:
“A rule compelling the critic of official conduct to guarantee the truth of all his factual assertions * * * leads to ... ‘self-censorship.’ * * * [W]ould-be critics of official conduct may be deterred from voicing their criticism, even though it is believed to be true and even though it is in fact true, because of doubt whether it can be proved in court or fear of the expense of having to do so.”
[Id. at 290, 91 S.Ct at 639-40, 28 L.Ed.2d at 53-54 (quoting New York Times, supra, 376 U.S. at 279, 84 S.Ct. at 725, 11 L.Ed.2d at 706).]
The Court then wrote:
These considerations apply with even greater force to the situation where the alleged libel consists in the claimed misinterpretation of the gist of a lengthy government document Where the document reported on is so ambiguous as this one was, it is hard to imagine a test of “truth” that would not put the publisher virtually at the mercy of the unguided discretion of a jury.
[Id. at 291, 91 S.Ct. at 640, 28 L.Ed.2d at 54.]
*625Hence, courts should accord some degree of liberality in evaluating a claimed misrendering of the gist of legal proceedings. For example, how might a newspaper publish or a broadcaster transmit, without comment, a portion of the daily testimony in a sensational criminal trial when that segment includes damaging accusations against a public official? Must the news organization publish the entire day’s testimony, including the cross-examination and rebuttal testimony, to ensure that its report is full, fair, and accurate? For a report to be characterized as fair and true, it should be enough that the content of the article be substantially accurate. In a fair report, the “ ‘ “defendant is not required * * * to justify every word of the alleged defamatory matter; it is sufficient if the substance, the gist, the sting of the libelous charge be justified____”’” Reader’s Digest Ass’n v. Superior Ct., 37 Cal.3d 244, 208 Cal.Rptr. 137, 149 n. 13, 690 P.2d 610, 622 n. 13 (1984) (quoting Hayward v. Watsonville Register-Pajaronian & Sun, 265 Cal.App.2d 255, 71 Cal.Rptr. 295, 300 (1968) (quoting Kurata v. Los Angeles News Publishing Co., 4 Cal.App.2d 224, 40 P.2d 520, 522 (1935))), cert. denied, 478 U.S. 1009, 106 S.Ct. 3307, 92 L.Ed.2d 720 (1986). See Herrmann v. Newark Morning Ledger Co., 48 N.J.Super. 420, 431-32, 138 A.2d 61 (App.Div.) (ruling that false statement in publication that “does not go to the gist or sting of the libel does not render an otherwise true statement defamatory”), aff'd, 49 N.J.Super. 551, 140 A.2d 529 (App.Div.1958).
[That conclusion] rests upon the realization that newspaper accounts of legislative or other official proceedings must be accorded some degree of liberality. When determining whether an article constitutes a “fair and true” report, the language used therein should not be dissected and analyzed with a lexicographer’s precision. This is so because a newspaper article is, by its very nature, a condensed report of events which must, of necessity, reflect to some degree the subjective viewpoint of its author. Nor should a fair report which is not misleading, composed and phrased in good faith under the exigencies of a publication deadline, be thereafter parsed and dissected on the basis of precise denotative meanings which may literally, although not contextually, be ascribed to the words used.
[Holy Spirit Ass’n for the Unification of World Christianity v. New York Times Co., 49 N.Y.2d 63, 424 N.Y.S.2d 165, 167, 399 N.E.2d 1185, 1187 (1979).]
*626Courts should not permit a plaintiff to recover for defamation simply because a reporter has technically misused a legal term or has misunderstood a legal document. Lackland H. Bloom, Jr., The Press and the Law: Some Issues in Defamation Litigation Involving Media Coverage of Legal Affairs and Proceedings, 43 Sw.L.J. 1011, 1044-45 (1990); see also Sivulich v. Howard Publications, Inc., 126 Ill.App.3d 129, 81 Ill.Dec. 416, 418, 466 N.E.2d 1218, 1220 (1984) (refusing to conclude that statement “ ‘[c]harges of aggravated battery have been filed’ ” against plaintiff appeared misleading in that it necessarily implied that police had filed criminal, as opposed to civil, charges) (quoting news article) (alteration in original); Lawrence v. Bauer Publishing & Printing Ltd., 89 N.J. 451, 446 A.2d 469 (reversing verdict for plaintiff when defendants misunderstood source’s tip regarding election-fraud investigation), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 999, 103 S.Ct. 358, 74 L.Ed.2d 395 (1982).
So viewed, the fair-report privilege is analogous to the doctrine of neutral reportage. In Edwards v. National Audubon Society, Inc., 556 F.2d 113 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1002, 98 S.Ct. 647, 54 L.Ed.2d 498 (1977), the court set aside a libel verdict against the New York Times, which had accurately reported false defamatory accusations made by a National Audubon Society official against prominent scientists concerning the use of the insecticide DDT. In that context, the court wrote: “[I]f we are to enjoy the blessings of a robust and unintimidated press, we must provide immunity from defamation suits where the journalist believes, reasonably and in good faith, that his report accurately conveys the charges made.” Id 556 F.2d at 120.
The neutral-reportage privilege
can perhaps best be explained by analogy to a report of a witness’ testimony at trial as protected by the fair report privilege. The witness is held to be responsible for his own testimony (i.e., perjury), regardless of its public interest value. The publisher who prints that testimony is not held responsible for it, because of the fair report privilege, even though it may be false and defamatory. The publisher is protected because of the public’s interest in reading the testimony in order to resolve for itself the issues at trial (and thus evaluate the fairness and conduct of the trial).
*627[David Marburger, More Protection for the Press: The Third Circuit Expands the Fair Report Privilege, 43 U.PittL.Rev. 1143, 1160 (1982).]
Such a view of the privilege “provid[es] protection for the republisher to help the public resolve the issues of life. * * * The statement provides the public with knowledge of what is being said about the issues of the day and by whom, while at the same time prompting further inquiry and possible resolution of those issues.” Ibid.
Judges are ill equipped to act as city editors. Court documents disclosed a draft complaint reciting sexual harassment of a woman by a public official. The public had an interest in knowing what was in those court documents. The Observer’s story reported the gist of what was in that court file.
O’HERN, J., concurring in result.
For affirmance—Justices CLIFFORD, HANDLER, POLLOCK, O’HERN, GARIBALDI and STEIN—6.
Opposed—None.