MEMO FROM THE EDITOR
MEMO from the Editor Criminal Libel In 1735, a New York journalist named John Peter Zenger delivered himself of some harsh judgments on the performance in office of King George's royal governor,...
...Gordon Jr...
...The judge was outraged, but the jury acquitted Zenger...
...Jim Fitts may not be a latter-day Zenger, but his persecutors—the two state legislators who have brought the criminal libel charges against him—bear a strong resemblance to King George's colonial satrap...
...About half the states and the District of Columbia still have criminal libel statutes on the books, though enforcement is "extremely rare and still terribly dangerous," Floyd Abrams, a leading libel lawyer, told The Wall Street Journal...
...He has already spent a weekend in jail because a local judge at first set $40,000 bail for Fitts's grave offense...
...But it's the kind of statement one ought to be able to make about public office-holders without fear of imprisonment or financial ruin...
...In the tiny community of Kingstree, South Carolina, a newspaper editor named Jim Fitts faces "criminal libel" charges that could cost him a year's imprisonment and a $5,000 fine...
...Erroneous statement," Justice Brennan wrote, "is inevitable in free debate, and...
...The trial caused a sensation...
...Fitts, a sixty-two-year-old black man with little money and no journalistic experience, started his weekly Voice a year-and-a-half ago because he felt people needed to know what was going on in Williamsburg County...
...But there's always somebody who doesn't get the word...
...It lacked respect for the rights and property of the people...
...When a grand jury refused to indict, the governor had Zenger arrested anyway and brought him to trial for "raising sedition...
...and Senator Frank McGill...
...MEMO from the Editor Criminal Libel In 1735, a New York journalist named John Peter Zenger delivered himself of some harsh judgments on the performance in office of King George's royal governor, William Cosby...
...It may, in fact, be wholly unfounded...
...The Progressive gratefully acknowledges a one-year grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board (with funds from the state of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts) to help underwrite the cost of publishing the work of Wisconsin graphic artists in this magazine...
...Among his targets were two state legislators, Representative B.J...
...The key psychological significance of the Zenger victory," Nat Hentoff has written, "was its proclamation that the press had the right to criticize public officials, even if that criticism made the people distrustful of the government...
...But what if those attacks are factually inaccurate...
...Last spring, Fitts wrote that "if every black in Williamsburg County would start stealing today and steal every day for the rest of their lives, they would not steal as much as those two have stolen during their time in power...
...That statement may not be accurate...
...It is certainly unkind, though it displays a distinct flair for vigorous commentary...
...In the United States, individuals who believe they have been damaged by wrongful publication usually seek redress by civil suits for financial compensation, not by criminal prosecution...
...It rigged elections and tampered with juries...
...The illustration on Page 7 by Michael Duffy and the illustrations on Pages 25 through 27 by David McLimans are the first commissioned under this program...
...The governor's administration, Zenger wrote in his New York Weekly Journal, was incompetent and unfair in its dealings with the colonists...
...Governor Cosby was displeased and attempted to have Zenger indicted for publishing "seditious libels [which] with the utmost virulence have endeavored to asperse his Excellency and vilify his Administration...
...In the definitive Supreme Court decision on the subject, The New York Times Company v. Sullivan, Justice William J. Brennan Jr...
...it must be protected if the freedoms of expression are to have the 'breathing space' that they 'need to survive.' " That ought to be the final word on the subject—even in Kingstree, South Carolina...
...And even claims for civil damages have been severely circumscribed where public officials are concerned...
...Zenger's distinguished lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, advanced a novel argument: "I cannot think it proper," he told the court, "to deny the publication of a complaint which I think is the right of every free-born subject to make...
...cited "a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on political 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...
Vol. 52 • August 1988 • No. 8
