| In New York Times v. Sullivan in 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court said the First Amendment protects criticism of government officials even if the comments are false and defamatory. The decision prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless the statement was made with actual malice. While New York Times v. Sullivan made it more difficult for public officials to ultimately prevail in libel suits, it has not discouraged them from suing. Anecdotal evidence suggests libel suits filed by public plaintiffs may restrict debate on public issues or weaken the media's role as a watchdog of government. The purpose of this study was to empirically examine the chilling effect of actual and threatened libel suits and factors associated with the chilling effect.; Using data gathered through telephone interviews with 304 randomly selected editors and publishers of U.S. daily newspapers, this study tested the relationship between chilling effect as measured by the Hansen-Moore chilling effect scale and the newspaper's libel history, characteristics, and practices related to avoidance of libel suits, as well as personal characteristics of respondents. Regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between chilling effect scale scores and each of the independent variables found to be significantly related to chilling effect through bivariate analysis.; Respondents who had been sued for libel or threatened with a libel suit in the past five years scored significantly higher on the chilling effect scale than those who had not. Those whose papers had been sued by a private citizen, had been threatened by an elected official, had been threatened by a private citizen, carried libel insurance, had larger circulations and had attorneys review stories more often also scored higher on the chilling effect scale. Regression analysis revealed that frequency of attorney review was the best predictor of chilling effect. This study calls into question the conventional wisdom that the source of the chilling effect is the monetary cost of libel. |
