The National Enquirer & Libel Charges

The National Enquirer (The Enquirer) in defending itself in cases involving claims that the tabloid has libeled persons mentioned

in its articles or otherwise violated their legal rights. The Enquirer has avoided thus far large liabilities because: (1) it has ably defended its interests, including settling most difficult cases; (2) state and federal courts have generally ruled in favor of The Enquirer because of certain decisions of the United States Supreme Court relating to the First Amendment rights of the press; and (3) plaintiffs have encountered certain other procedural difficulties in sustaining their claims against the Enquirer. The record of The Enquirer, however, since 1991 has been more mixed, reflecting a determination of some celebrities to bring the tabloid to account for inaccuracies in its articles which suggests that some hard fought battles lie ahead.

The Enquirer was purchased by Generoso Pope, Jr. in 1952 for $75,000 when it had an annual circulation of 17,000. After it began specializing in articles dealing with television personalities and other celebrities, its circulation rose to five million per week and was reportedly at 3.3 million per week in 1995. The Enquirer, which is headquartered in Lantana, Florida, is the queen of the tabloid press, which includes such publications as The Star, The Globe, The National Examiner, The

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rt in the Central District in California. The Court, which noted that Wynberg had been convicted of crimes five times, ruled in favor of the Enquirer on its motion for summary judgment on the grounds that the statements in the article were either substantially true or that they were non-actionable as statements of opinion. In 1986, the California Supreme Court ruled on an invasion of privacy action, Fellows v. National Enquirer Inc., in which an article had alleged that plaintiff had an affair with the actress, Angie Dickinson. Under California's invasion of privacy decisions, a statement to be actionable must cast the plaintiff in a false light which "must be highly offensive to a reasonable person." The Supreme Court ruled that the same rules as to proof of special damages which applied to state defamation actions applied to invasion of privacy actions. Justice Rose Bird said that any other decision "would defeat the legislative purpose of providing a zone of protection for operation of the free press." Deutschman, who was critical of that decision, because Fellows, a married man, had not dated Dickinson, says it "closed the door on these individuals by eliminating the distinction between false light privacy and defamation."
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Approximate Word count = 3029
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)

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