Court Opinion

ID: 9612916
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:12:18.070798+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:23.667931
License: Public Domain

Dolliver, J.
(concurring specially) — While I continue to support the position of the majority, I am constrained to make a further observation on libel. A free press is certainly an essential and crucial ingredient of a democratic society. Editorial choice is the critical element and is justified by the need for the press to be free, not, as some would have it, simply a purveyor of some commodity called the "right to know". Nonetheless, the power to injure gravely or destroy a reputation by untrue statements is a particular danger and problem. Reputations can be destroyed by an untruth whether published or broadcast with actual malice or, as the dissent claims here, because there was "a hot news story, written and broadcast with the characteristic haste of a television reporter, which through some inadvertence contained an exaggeration in the amount of campaign contributions that a prosecuting attorney had received from bail bondsmen at past elections." Dissenting opinion, at 529. Actual malice or "inadvertence" is immaterial to the target of the report; if it is untrue, it can destroy.
*528Looked at in the context of the time and the nature of the case before it, the Supreme Court decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 11 L. Ed. 2d 686, 84 S. Ct. 710, 95 A.L.R.2d 1412 (1964) seems inevitable and appropriate. In any event, it is the law by which this court is bound. It seems to me, however, the New York Times rule is a blunt instrument which fails to address what I believe to be the major concern of plaintiffs in cases such as the one before us: the restoration of their reputation by a public admission from the press that it was wrong, and false material was published or broadcast about the plaintiff. The publisher or broadcaster should simply admit the error in a manner equally well publicized as the original untruth and apologize.
It seems to me this sort of admission by the press that it erred, is sorry, and retracts the false statements would be salutary. Add to this compensation to the plaintiffs for their legal costs, and the plaintiffs certainly would be better off than going through the agony of a trial and gaining a money judgment, regardless of its size. A money judgment, which perhaps is satisfying, will not restore a reputation. From the standpoint of the press, the admission from time to time that it was wrong and in fact did tell damaging untruths about people might enhance its position with the public.
I recognize this procedure is not the law, and, given what seems to be an insatiable appetite for legal combat, an unwillingness to admit a mistake, and obvious constitutional problems, I suppose it never will be. Furthermore, I fully agree with the dissent that "[s]ome erroneous statements are inevitable in free debate" and "must be protected if freedom of expression is to have the breathing space it requires." Dissenting opinion, at 544. But the law and rights declared by the constitution and protected by the courts are not the only means by which the fabric of a free society is woven and maintained. Fair dealing and the admission by persons, including reporters, editors and publishers, that they were wrong, even if the error was unin*529tentional, might encourage a much needed civility in our public discourse. It is worth a try.
Callow and Goodloe, JJ., concur with Dolliver, J.