It's a cheap ploy, but it comes with a serious, sinister subtext. Trump has been making a case for changing U.S. libel laws to make it easier to punish publishers of news he considers "fake."
What he doesn't seem to realize is that actual fake news is already outside the protection of current laws.
That's the opinion of one of the foremost experts on U.S. libel law, Robert D. Sack, a senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. Sack has focused on these issues for decades; before becoming a federal judge in 1998 he was a libel lawyer representing notable media clients like the Wall Street Journal.
Fake news, "invented and disseminated with the intention of fooling the recipient into believing it is genuine," is actionable under present law, he writes in the latest edition of his definitive two-volume treatise on defamation, "Sack on Defamation: Libel, Slander and Related Problems."
What he means is that if Trump were correct that mainstream news outlets deliberately published false information with the intent of making him look bad, he could successfully sue them without any changes to existing law.
Contemporary libel law grows out of a 1964 landmark Supreme Court case, New York Times v. Sullivan, in which the justices ruled that a public figure can win a defamation case only by showing that false and harmful charges against him were made with "actual malice."
That's a legal term-of-art that means publishing something knowing it was false or with "reckless disregard" for whether it was true or not.
This daunting standard applies only to public figures; ordinary citizens can win libel judgments if they are defamed negligently. It's designed to protect a free, aggressive press against intimidation or even bankruptcy.
In anticipation of Wednesday's "Fake News Awards" charade, Senator Jeff Flake, one of the few implacable Trump critics remaining among conservative Republican politicians, has prepared blistering remarks about the president's contempt for a free press.
Recalling Trump's charge that the press is "the enemy of the American people," the Arizona lawmaker noted that the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin used similar language to justify purges against real and imagined opponents. (Not that Stalin had a free press to worry about.)
"The president has it precisely backwards — despotism is the enemy of the people," Flake said in remarks prepared for delivery in the Senate. "The free press is the despot's enemy, which makes the free press the guardian of democracy. When a figure in power reflexively calls any press that doesn't suit him, 'fake news,' it is the person who should be the figure of suspicion, not the press."
Read more: Trump's 'Fake News Awards' Have a Sinister Subtext - Bloomberg
What he doesn't seem to realize is that actual fake news is already outside the protection of current laws.
That's the opinion of one of the foremost experts on U.S. libel law, Robert D. Sack, a senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. Sack has focused on these issues for decades; before becoming a federal judge in 1998 he was a libel lawyer representing notable media clients like the Wall Street Journal.
Fake news, "invented and disseminated with the intention of fooling the recipient into believing it is genuine," is actionable under present law, he writes in the latest edition of his definitive two-volume treatise on defamation, "Sack on Defamation: Libel, Slander and Related Problems."
What he means is that if Trump were correct that mainstream news outlets deliberately published false information with the intent of making him look bad, he could successfully sue them without any changes to existing law.
Contemporary libel law grows out of a 1964 landmark Supreme Court case, New York Times v. Sullivan, in which the justices ruled that a public figure can win a defamation case only by showing that false and harmful charges against him were made with "actual malice."
That's a legal term-of-art that means publishing something knowing it was false or with "reckless disregard" for whether it was true or not.
This daunting standard applies only to public figures; ordinary citizens can win libel judgments if they are defamed negligently. It's designed to protect a free, aggressive press against intimidation or even bankruptcy.
In anticipation of Wednesday's "Fake News Awards" charade, Senator Jeff Flake, one of the few implacable Trump critics remaining among conservative Republican politicians, has prepared blistering remarks about the president's contempt for a free press.
Recalling Trump's charge that the press is "the enemy of the American people," the Arizona lawmaker noted that the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin used similar language to justify purges against real and imagined opponents. (Not that Stalin had a free press to worry about.)
"The president has it precisely backwards — despotism is the enemy of the people," Flake said in remarks prepared for delivery in the Senate. "The free press is the despot's enemy, which makes the free press the guardian of democracy. When a figure in power reflexively calls any press that doesn't suit him, 'fake news,' it is the person who should be the figure of suspicion, not the press."
Read more: Trump's 'Fake News Awards' Have a Sinister Subtext - Bloomberg
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