New York Times v. Sullivan is Unconstitutional

It's long overdue to revisit the New York Times v. Sullivan

By Rich Kozlovich

On August 5th August 5, 2026, George M.J. Perry published this article, Why Justices Thomas and Gorsuch Want to Revisit saying:

The bottom line for Thomas, as he states in Berisha and re-ups in Dershowitz, is that the actual malice standard for public figures “bears ‘no relation to the text, history, or structure of the Constitution.’”  A truly unprecedented standard like actual malice arose from the Court seeing a problem where its predecessors did not.  For nearly 200 years, libel law and the freedom of the press co-existed peacefully, each in their own domain........ 

Justice Joseph Story, for example, wrote in 1833 that the idea that the First Amendment grants someone “an absolute right to speak, or write, or print” whatever they wished, without risk of consequence, was “a supposition too wild to be indulged by any rational man.” For if that was the case, “every citizen [would have] a right to destroy, at his pleasure, the reputation, the peace, the property, and even the personal safety of every other citizen.

The media has always been out of control with outrageous claims forever, which both William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer excelled in.  They called it "yellow journalism" in those days, but their corrupt journalism is what laid the destructive and corrupt groundwork for the journalism we see today.  The media not only attack individuals they don't like, they defend the most indefensible characters and positions with with projection, red herring fallacies, lies of commission and lies of omission.  

But all that really became truly out of control with the SCOTUS decision in the New York Times vs. Sullivan.  That decision gave the media a carte blanche license to to smear public officials and public figures without consequence, and naturally as time has gone by that practice has gotten much worse..... at least until Trump and others sued media outlets, and started winning, as did Nick Sandmann when he sued "CNN, the Washington Post, and NBC Universal" and won to the tune of $275 million dollars.  

Now, according to Kash Patel the Atlantic has smeared him and he's filed a lawsuit, which has been going on since April.  The Atlantic is asking a judge to kick his suit to the curb!  Why?  The suit is meritless! Really? 

At least according to them it's meritless, and they stand four square behind their report.  Okay, they certainly have the right to stand behind the report, but as to whether or not it has merit is supposed to be decided at a trial ...... you know.... that's where the accused and the accusers face each other and make their case?  

Make no mistake, the Atlantic will argue the Sullivan defense, and in the real world if anyone other than the media was sued for defamation it would be settled or go to trial.  That's the way it is for everyone else in America, except for the media, and if it's good enough for the rest of America, it should be good enough for the media.

Last year Jack Hellner, one of my favorite writers, published this piece asking, Shouldn't most media outlets be sueable?, saying how the media has deliberately and knowingly lied about Russia and Trump, have deliberately "disregarded the truth" for years, have promoted "witch hunts", and supported people like Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell spreading their lies saying:

They disenfranchised the voters that supported Trump by falsely calling him an illegitimate President. The interference in elections by the American media dwarfed anything Russia, China, and Iran have ever done..........

Jurists are coming to the conclusion Sullivan needs fixed as a "Defiant Federal Judge Calls Out the Media-Democrat Complex, saying: 

One D.C. Circuit jurist pulled no punches as he sounded the alarm on ‘one-party control of the press and media.’   The flak only gets heavy when you’re over the target.”.... Judge Laurence Silberman, the formidable senior jurist on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, as a result of the  dissent he filed in a recent libel case. .........Judge Silberman had the audacity to notice that the mainstream media function as an adjunct of the Democratic Party.......... 

The New York Times v. Sullivan decision, just like the Chevron Deference, was without any Constitutional justification, and as "Judge Laurence Silberman notes, it allowed the court to:

 "supplant the traditional state common law of defamation with a rule, speciously claimed to be mandated by the First Amendment, that requires defamed public figures to prove actual malice — i.e., to prove that any libelous statements were intentionally false or made with reckless disregard for their falsity."

The rational view of former Justice Joseph Story '"that the First Amendment grants someone “an absolute right to speak, or write, or print” whatever they wished, without risk of consequence, was “a supposition too wild to be indulged by any rational man"', was not the view of the men who decided unanimously on the Sullivan case.  They were not rational men, they were political hacks; William J. Brennan Jr.,  Hugo L. Black,  Tom C. Clark  William O. Douglas  Arthur J. Goldberg,  John Marshall Harlan, and Earl Warren, who embraced the idea the federal judiciary had the right to legislate from the bench.

Under Sullivan it isn't just necessary to prove the media lied, the offended party must prove..... prove mind you...... the media's lies weren't just falsehoods that smeared their character irreparably, but it was done with "actual malice", an almost impossible hurtle to overcome no matter how egregiously obvious the slanders may have been.  

The unconstitutional Sullivan decision unleashed onto America a corp of corrupt media liars who worked to destroy the lives of people of whom they disapprove.  It's time to end this insanity and force the media to live by the same standards as the rest of America.  No one should be above the law!  After all, isn't that their unending meme while going after Trump, his allies and the J6 defendants, and did it with lies?