The ad had several inaccuracies regarding facts such as the number of times King had been arrested during the protests, what song the protesters had sung, and whether students had been expelled for participating.
The Court said that because of these core American free-speech principles, it would have to consider Sullivan's defamation claims "against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials."
TIL that "untrue" and "vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp" mean the same thing.
TIL that "untrue" and "vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp" mean the same thing.
Penn and Teller once talked about this on Bullshit.
They said the network's lawyers told them they could not call someone "stupid" because that's defamation.
But they COULD say a bunch of far stronger words that still boil down to "stupid." Which they did.
Lawyers are weird.