Pickers and choosers, a la carte diners rather than indulgers in the entire menu, many Americans, and American politicians, have their favorite parts of the Constitution, choosing sometimes to ignore the other bits.
If we members of the press choose often enough to emphasize in importance the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, well, sue us.
Or rather, don’t.
Under the rules of free speech that the amendment lays out, it is in fact very hard in our nation to prevail in legal action over something that has been said or written about someone.
You know the First, or you ought to: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
We’re of course pleased that our profession, “the press,” is one of the few jobs granted specific freedoms in our country’s founding document.
And for centuries, probably more than in any other country in the world, the courts have specifically held that Americans who, through their own choice, have become public figures, are almost impossible to libel. That would be “abridging the freedom of speech.” Politicians are by definition public figures — they have sought our votes in order to be placed in positions of power. In exchange, they give up the right, insofar as others have it, to claim that they have been materially damaged by something — even something erroneous or mean-spirited, and especially something satirical — someone else says or writes.
President Trump, who certainly exercises his own First Amendment right to free speech every day, probably has another favorite part of the Constitution. Because, way more than any president certainly in living memory, he often seems to fail to even understand the protections it gives.
Most recently, after an excerpt of Michael Wolff’s book “Fire and Fury” was published earlier this month, Trump’s lawyers wrote publisher Henry Holt a cease-and-desist letter, threatening to sue for libel and even demanding that the book’s publication be halted. The publisher quite correctly dismissed the request as “flagrantly unconstitutional,” and let the presses roll.
Now that everyone is reading the book, thanks in part for the great publicity the president gave it, Trump is tweeting that he will take a “strong look” at radically strengthening libel laws, and says he thinks it is a “disgrace” that such a warts-and-all look at his presidency can be published in our country.
This is a seriously dangerous meme frequently propagated by the president, and he needs to put a stop to it for the good of the nation, and its Constitution. As chief executive, not a lawmaker, he has no power to strengthen libel laws in the first place. In October, he tweeted: “With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!”
The television networks, Mr. President, don’t have broadcast licenses; their individual stations around the country do, as a way to manage the public airwaves. Unlike in some other countries, we in the print press don’t have to apply to the government for the right to print the real news, and let us hope we never will.
