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Separating Fact from Fiction on Florida’s Defamation Bills
The National Review
By Jim Schwartzel
February 27, 2024
Florida legislators have identified a real problem, but they are responding to it with bills that would harm free speech.
A pair of proposed laws in Florida would threaten free speech by opening up conservative media outlets to liability and a torrent of lawsuits. But the proposals come from an unlikely source: supposedly tort-reforming, small-government Republicans in the Florida legislature.
Ironically, the laws would threaten the very center-right outlets — including my family-owned radio station — these Republicans rely on to communicate their message and circumvent the chokehold that liberal media would otherwise have on the state. While the bills are intended to go after outlets such as the New York Times, conservative outlets would be hardest hit.
The sponsors of these bills, H.B. 757 and S.B. 1780, have downplayed their impact. But an examination of the legislators’ claims against the facts, and the text of the legislation, reveals a stark reality: These proposed laws, under the guise of fairness and accountability, threaten to erode fundamental conservative values and the very essence of free speech.
Here are some claims that state representative Alex Andrade and other supporters of the bills have made, followed by the facts.
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Indictment of journalist raises serious First Amendment concerns
Freedom of the Press Foundation
By the Freedom of the Press Foundation Staff
February 22, 2024
Federal prosecutors in Florida have obtained a disturbing indictment against well-known journalist Tim Burke. The indictment could have significant implications for press freedom, not only by putting digital journalists at risk of prosecution but by allowing the government to permanently seize a journalist’s computers.
While the indictment is short on facts, it reportedly arises, in part, from Burke’s dissemination of outtakes from a 2022 Tucker Carlson interview with Ye, formerly Kanye West, where Ye made antisemitic remarks that Fox News chose not to air. Ye’s antisemitism has been global news ever since. The indictment, which also alludes to sports-related content Burke allegedly intercepted, charges Burke with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and with intentionally disclosing illegally intercepted communications.
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Fla. bill that would make it easier to sue media advances
Tampa Bay Times
By Lawrence Mower
February 22, 2024
TALLAHASSEE — A group of Christian broadcasters called it “deeply flawed.”
Conservative Florida radio host and former U.S. Rep. Trey Radel said it would “destroy conservative media.”
The New York Post’s editorial board called it “utterly mad” and “insanely overreaching.”
Florida Republican-sponsored legislation that was originally intended to make it easier to sue mainstream news outlets for defamation has sparked an intense backlash from conservatives, who fear it will be turned against them.
HB 757 and SB 1780 would change the state’s defamation laws and challenge federal court rulings on free speech.
Publishers who cite an anonymous source who provides wrong information could be exposed to greater liability in a defamation lawsuit. The legislation would also create a new, speedier venue for allowing defamation cases to proceed or be tossed out.
On Wednesday, a House committee approved HB 757 on a 14-7 vote, sending it to the floor for a full vote. Lawmakers asked no questions and said nothing during debate.
Minutes later, Stephen Miller, who was a senior adviser to President Donald Trump, took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to say that conservative influencers, podcasters and alternative media “are going to get WRECKED” if the bill passes.
“If you want to go after corporate media then pass a law narrowly tailored at them,” Miller wrote.
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Commentary | Orange parent: Book bans don’t protect education, they hinder it
Orlando Sentinel
by Stephana Ferrell
February 20, 2024
There’s a bit of irony in Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz purposefully mischaracterizing a book like Marilyn Reynolds “Shut Up!” as “sexually graphic” to scare a person into silence. The abuser in “Shut Up!” accuses his victim’s older brother (a witness to the abuse) of watching pornography, resulting in expulsion from the house, so he could have full, unprotected access to his victim.
Yes, I am the parent — sorry, “activist” — that Commissioner Diaz was referring to when he shared his uninformed opinion of the book “Shut Up!” at the “book ban hoax” press conference last week in Orange County. Both of my children attend OCPS schools. I volunteer my time tracking censorship across the state for the nonprofit Florida Freedom to Read Project. Am I an “activist?” A “mama bear?” I prefer public-school parent, exercising the right to protect my children’s education, including pushing back when books are banned.
And yes, I mean banned. If this book was simply being removed to make room for others, a media specialist would be able to reorder it when a student expressed interest in reading it. That cannot happen with “Shut Up!” in Orange County. It also can’t happen with “The Bluest Eye,” “Sold” or “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” These are all books that address sexual assault in direct, descriptive language. These books are not pornography. They are not obscene. And, they are not expressly forbidden under the current language of the law.
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Newsmax Trashes Florida GOP Bills Targeting the ‘Liberal Media’
The Daily Beast
By Corbin Bolies
February 21, 2024
Newsmax has joined the legions of conservative media outlets and figures who have trashed a pair of Florida GOP bills that ostensibly aim to curb so-called “liberal media” by loosening the definition of defamation.
“Newsmax strongly opposes both bills and any proposed law that makes it easy to sue media companies,” Chris Ruddy, Newsmax’s CEO, said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “Free speech and a free press are the most fundamental of our constitutional rights and must be zealously safeguarded.” (Newsmax maintains a headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida, and Ruddy is a West Palm Beach native and a friend of former President Donald Trump.)
The bills—House Bill 757 and its Florida Senate companion, SB 1780—would lower the threshold for defamation in Florida, allowing public officials to sue journalists and media outlets if an anonymous source says something the official believes to be false. The bills passed out of a Florida House committee on Wednesday in a 14-7 vote, and it is next headed to a Florida House vote.
Whatever the right-wing legislative effort’s intentions, these conservative critics say, it would be an affront to the First Amendment and would ultimately harm right-of-center media.
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