FL Advances Bill On Suing Journalists For Defamation

Florida Politics reports:

Members of the House Civil Justice Subcommittee voted 12-4 for a measure (HB 757) that would lower the legal bar in defamation lawsuits by shifting the burden of proof from the plaintiff to the defendant.

That’s appropriate given how little faith there is today in media to get the story right, argued Pensacola Republican Rep. Alex Andrade, the bill’s sponsor. “The issue right now is trust in the media is at an all-time low,” he said. “Media is not engaging in sufficient self-regulation.”

HB 757 would provide that courts accept as a rebuttable presumption — an assumption of fact or law — that if a defamatory statement about a public figure is published and the statement relied on an anonymous source, the publisher acted with malice.

Read the full article. Andrade appeared here in February 2023 for his bill requiring public universities to teach “Western values.” Last week a different Florida GOP rep introduced a bill making it “defamatory per se” to call someone anti-LGBTQ, racist, or sexist.

Bill by @RAlexAndradeFL easing defamation lawsuits against journalists, misleading AI image creators advances in House

Reporting by @JesseSchecknerhttps://t.co/exTXm8auBd#FlaPol

— Florida Politics (@Fla_Pol) January 18, 2024

We are opposing the defamation bills HB 757, SB 1086 and SB 1780, which would have a chilling effect on the ability of journalists and the public to hold public figures accountable for their actions.

— CommonCause Florida (@commoncausefl) January 17, 2024