You Must Move Quickly if a News Publication Defames You
Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America, from border to border and coast to coast, and all the ships as sea. The year was 1931. The Empire State Building had just been completed, the Star-Spangled Banner was adopted as the Unities States’ national anthem, and Albert Einstein began his research at the California Institute of Technology.
In California, the Legislature decided to encourage the rapid reporting of news by newspapers, by affording them some protections from liability. Civil Code § 48a was passed, and stated:
“In any action for damages for the publication of a libel in a newspaper, if the defendant can show that such libelous matter was published through misinformation or mistake, the plaintiff shall recover no more than actual damages, unless a retraction be demanded and refused as hereinafter provided.”
It was amended in 1945 to add the same protection to news reported on the radio. At that point, television* and the internet did not exist. Magazines existed, but for whatever reason, the legislature elected not to include them.
And there the statute sat for 70 years, protecting only newspapers and radio. This lead to some strange results, as other publications that should logically be afforded the same protections, simply did not fall under the wording of the statute. Continue reading
