- April 19, 2024
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Gov. Ron DeSantis boosted his war on the news media to a new level this week, holding an invitation-only roundtable in South Florida to decry “legacy-media defamation practices.”
The glitzy town-hall style event included a handful of panelists billed as “victims of media defamation,” lawyers and journalist Michael Moynihan, who co-hosts a podcast that attacks the “rhetorical news cycle.”
Much of Tuesday’s hour-long chat centered on a 1964 U.S. Supreme Court decision in a case known as New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which held that the First Amendment limits the public’s ability to sue public officials for defamation. DeSantis is among a growing number of Republicans urging the Supreme Court, which has a majority of conservative justices, to revisit the ruling.
The governor said he’s accustomed to criticism from the media but that average people need more protections from defamatory or libelous reports.
“You know, me, they come after me and they do a lot of slander, but I fight back. I have a platform to fight back. So, it's a lot easier for me and, you know, people here trust me a hell of a lot more than they trust the media. So it ends up being fine,” DeSantis said at the event, shown on social-media platforms. “We work it out. You know, it's not a big deal. I’ve got thick skin but you have some of these other folks who are just run-of-the mill citizens, their only possible way of recourse would be to be able to bring an action because they don't have the platform, you know, that I have.”
While DeSantis can’t force the Supreme Court to overturn the Sullivan ruling, he’s prodding state lawmakers to adopt changes aimed at making it easier for maligned folks to get relief from journalists.
“At the end of the day, it’s our view in Florida that we want to be standing up for the little guy against some of these massive media conglomerates,” he said.
