DeSantis and Panel Discuss Need for Libel Law Reforms to Protect Everyday Citizens

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hosted a live-streamed roundtable discussion on Feb. 7, aiming at big media companies who, participants said, play fast and loose with the truth, leaving broken lives in their wake.
They discussed the 1964 Supreme Court decision of the New York Times v. Sullivan, which made it nearly impossible for a public figure to win a libel suit. The allegedly injured party must show the information was not only false and damaging—the usual standard to prove libel—but that the journalist knew it and chose to publish it anyway.
Courts have subsequently extended the standard to turn everyday people into public figures, said libel lawyer Libby Locke….}