Southern Discomfort
One line that guards freedom of the press from license is the law of libel. Editors are always mindful of it; advertising departments are sometimes less heedful.
Last March, reading a full-page ad in the New York Times, L. (for Lester) B. Sullivan, 39, police commissioner of Montgomery, Ala., decided that the Times had done him wrong. Sullivan had not even been mentioned by name; the ad was an appeal for funds to defend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Southern Negro leader, against charges of...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In