| Many western scholars regard the media’s right of public opinion supervision as the "fourth power" independent of the traditional three powers,whose main function is to supervise the operation of public power and safeguard the social public interest.The United States is regarded as the leader in the implementation of the press freedom system,and its measures to protect the right of supervision of media public opinion are used for reference by many countries.However,it is not known that the early American government also had an ignominious history of using "defamation" to restrain the media from conducting public discussions.At that time,American Defamation Law mainly followed the tradition of British defamation law and applied the principle of "strict liability" in media defamation litigation.Any remarks by the media criticizing the government and its public officials or damaging the authority of the government can constitute defamation.This is not conducive to the media’s public discussion and implementation of the responsibility of public opinion supervision.In 1964,the Supreme Court of the United States established the standard of "actual malice" in "New York Times Co.v.Sullivan",and reformed the traditional defamation law.In the code,the plaintiff must prove that the media has "actual malice" when it issues the disputed speech in the defamation lawsuit against the media,and the defamation accusation can only be established.In this way,officials and public figures are limited to limit the behavior of news media reports by defamation litigation,thus ensuring the free supervision of the media,which is conducive to the protection of the public interest.From the beginning of this case,the Supreme Court of the United States expanded the scope of application of the "actual malice" standard in stages,and finally determined the applicable boundary of the criterion.In the cases of Butts and Walker in 1967,the Supreme Court of the United States extended the scope of application of the "actual malice" defamation determination standard from officials to public figures,and in the Rosenbloom case in 1971,it extended the scope of application of the "actual malice" principle to all people involved in the "public interest".However,in the Gertz case in 1974,the chief justices of the Supreme Court thought that if the "actual malice" standard was still applied in the defamation lawsuit brought by ordinary private to the media,it would be likely to expand the "actual malice" criterion excessively,which is not conducive to the protection of the reputation right of ordinary private.Therefore,the Supreme Court abandoned the application of the "actual malice" standard and adopted the "fault liability" standard,which changed from emphasizing the protection of the public interest to the balance between the protection of the public interest and the protection of the private interest.This paper argues that the judicial regulation of media speech in the United States since the 1960 s reflects a reasonable balance between the protection of public interests and the protection of private interests.Since 1964,the establishment and expansion of the "actual malice" defamation criterion of regulating media speech in the United States is based on the protection of public interest speech,while since 1974,the establishment of its applicable boundary is based on the protection of ordinary private interests.It can be seen that the contemporary judicial regulation of media speech in the United States is based on the balance of public interest protection and private interest protection.This is of great significance to improve the judicial regulation of media speech in China. |
