ABSTRACT
This Eric Barendt Annual Media Law Lecture considers what American libel law can and cannot do to help preserve liberal democracy. It explores the wave of recent US cases that have attempted to use libel law to protect democracy-preserving truth and examines the ways that it has been an effective instrument in advancing this goal. Then it identifies and categorises a set of inherent shortcomings that keep libel law, on its own, from performing the full task of sustaining democracy-preserving truth. It concludes that even if efforts to develop carefully balanced defamation law are one step in the direction of democracy preservation, those who invoke it as an anchor for democracy-preserving truth must do so with an awareness of both the constraints on the ability of libel law to fulfil those missions and the serious risks of overreliance on or expansion of it. In this sense, the story of the intersection between defamation and democracy stands as an illustration not just of the power of courts to employ truthseeking tools but also of the ways that democracy relies on politics and people, not merely on litigation and liability.
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RonNell Andersen Jones, Democracy preservation and the limits of libel law, Journal of Media Law. Published online: 29 December 2025.
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