Court Opinion

ID: 9850428
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:57:05.606327+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:37.010887
License: Public Domain

YETKA, Justice
(dissenting).
I would affirm the court of appeals and allow Cohen to recover on either a contract or promissory estoppel theory. The simple truth of the matter is that the appellants made a promise of confidentiality to Cohen in consideration for information they considered newsworthy. That promise was broken and, as a direct consequence, Cohen lost his job. Under established rules of contract law, the appellants should be responsible for the consequences of that broken promise. The first amendment is being misused to avoid liability under the doctrine of promissory estoppel. The result of this is to carve out yet another special privilege in favor of the press that is denied other citizens.
I dissent because I believe that the news media should be compelled to keep their promises like anyone else. If they did not intend to keep the promise they made to Cohen, they should not have made it or should have refused to use the proffered information. Alternatively, after accepting the information subject to the confidentiali*206ty agreement, the press could have printed the story without revealing the source or could have simply attributed the source to “someone close to the Whitney campaign” without revealing Cohen’s name.
I find the consequences of this decision deplorable. First, potential news sources will now be reluctant to give information to reporters. As a result, the public could very well be denied far more important information about candidates for public office relevant to evaluating their qualifications than the rather trivial infractions disclosed here. Second, it offends the fundamental principle of equality under the law.
This decision sends out a clear message that if you are wealthy and powerful enough, the law simply does not apply to you; contract law, it now seems, applies only to millions of ordinary people. It is unconscionable to allow the press, on the one hand, to hide behind the shield of confidentiality when it does not want to reveal the source of its information; yet, on the other hand, to violate confidentiality agreements with impunity when it decides that disclosing the source will help make its story more sensational and profitable. During the Watergate crisis, the press published many pious editorials urging that the laws be enforced equally against everyone, even the President of the United States. Nevertheless, the press now argues that the law should not apply to them because they alone are entitled to make “editorial decisions” as to what the public should read, see, or hear and whether the source of that information should be disclosed.
The decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S.Ct. 710, 11 L.Ed.2d 686 (1964), has not resulted in a more responsible press. In the 19th century, the phrases “scandal sheet” and “yellow journalism” became common adjectives for disreputable publications. It would be tragic if these colorful descriptions regained popular usage because of the practices of a few of the more sensational “journalistic” enterprises which appear to be growing in number and popularity, replacing the great newspapers of the past.
Perhaps it is time in these United States to return to treating the press the same as any other citizen. Let them print anything they choose to print, but make them legally responsible if they break their promises or act negligently in connection with what they print — free of any special protection carved out by New York Times v. Sullivan or any of its progeny. The decision of this court makes this a sad day in the history of a responsible press in America. Because I firmly believe that no one should be above the law, including the President of the United States or the news media, I would affirm the court of appeals.