Libel and the Media's Role in Ethics Oversight

Open Letter to Illinois Chief Justice Robert R. Thomas:

The news media are probably the most important single element in providing oversight in government ethics matters. And the most effective way to keep the news media from doing their job is to file a libel suit.

The New York Times ran an excellent article yesterday by Katharine Q. Seelye, which focused on a libel suit you brought against a small-town newspaper. Apparently, the paper accused you of having traded a vote for a political favor. A jury gave you an award of $7 million, after other justices spoke in your defense. The defense found it hard to get anyone to testify for the newspaper due, it said, to fear of retaliation, since you oversee the state's legal system. You knew that would happen when you filed the suit, didn't you.

The CEO of the newspaper's insurance company said that this decision would have a chilling effect on small papers' reporting of local political matters. And this would extend not just to Illinois, but nationally. It will affect libel insurance premiums, so that some papers will not even be able to afford libel insurance and will, therefore, steer away from anything that could possibly raise the ire of a public servant. You knew that would happen when you filed the suit, didn''t you.

The newspaper will probably win on appeal (according to the article, the media win on appeal 68% of the time when public officials bring libel suits), but the damage you have caused will still be done. The great majority of costs of libel suits come from defending against them rather than from awards. You knew that when you filed the suit, didn't you?

What you have done by filing your libel suit is far worse than the harm to your reputation that could have occurred because of the reporting of a newspaper with a circulation of 14,000, and far worse than your trading a vote for a political favor, if you in fact did. It is inexcusable that the justices of a state supreme court would put the reputation of a member ahead of the importance of the nation's small newspapers to providing oversight in government ethics matters.

If you do not recognize the value of this service, and accept that mistakes will be made, then who will? And if you do not recognize that as public servants, you will be the target of political attacks, some of them false or exaggerated, then why should anyone else accept that risk instead of trying to destroy anyone who dares attack them?

The fact that you filed such a case in a court system you control, and that you asked your fellow justices to testify for you (could they truly have known the facts?), shows a serious lack of ethical awareness. If you want to have a reputation as an ethical leader, I ask that you drop your suit and apologize to our nation's newspapers, which are far from perfect, but are necessary to citizen oversight of our government and to teaching people basic government ethics. And I ask that you apologize to us for the harm that you certainly foresaw would be inflicted on us by our loss of government oversight.

Sincerely,

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired
City Ethics, Inc.