Some minority jurisdiction cases say that a lack of due care on the defendant's part is sufficient to defeat the qualified privilege to make a defamatory misstatement about a public official.

—the court felt it necessary to refute the idea that newspapers have greater latitude than individuals, stating: "The constitutional provision relative to the freedom of the press confers no special privilege or right upon a publisher of a newspaper in relation to the law of defamation. Any person has the same right as a pubfisher of a newspaper."

As stated in one of the more recent cases: "A citizen in a free state having an interest in the conduct of the affairs of his government should not be held to strict accountability for misstatement of fact, if he has tried to ascertain the truth and, on a reasonable basis, honestly and in good faith believes that the statements made by him are true."

At the time of the Sullivan case, state courts in some other states had recognized a qualified privilege for defamatory and false statements concerning the public conduct of public officials.

Regardless of whether the alleged defamatory publication was made in reply to accusations first made by plaintiff, the rule may now be considered as established that a candidate for public office may sue for libel only when he can prove the alleged defamatory publication was made with "actual malice"—that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard …

An oft-cited statement of a like rule, which has been adopted by a number of state courts, 20 is found in the Kansas case 20

—discussing the moral and social responsibilities of the modern media in attempting to ascertain the truth of public acts on which they report

The Supreme Court in New York Times cited ten cases that at least partially protected false and defamatory statements of fact in political debate.

Mill, On Liberty (Oxford: Blackwell, 1947), at 15; see also Milton, Areopagitia, in Prose Works (Yale, 1959), Vol. II, at 561. 20

—allegation that plaintiff had unnecessarily used an intermediary to purchase a bridge, increasing thereby the sale price of the bridge

[CITATION] Fundamental rights in the new constitution: an overview of the new …

[CITATION] Petitioners, v. LB Sullivan'