PRESS WATCH : Say What?

The First Amendment gives the press substantial protection from interference and harassment, and a good press offers a democracy vital information and a healthy debate. But with rights come responsibilities, and the press must keep up its end of the bargain with professionalism that is above reproach.

In a key ruling Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court entered the tricky thicket of when the press must be held accountable for publishing quotations that may not be faithful reproductions of what actually was said. A celebrated libel suit accused the writer of a New Yorker article of making up quotes.

The court rightly decided that inaccurate quotes were not in themselves actionable, because, as the majority opinion noted, it’s not always possible to reconstruct conversations “with complete accuracy.” Minor modifications are one thing; only changes that materially affect the meaning of what was actually said may be judged potentially libelous.

That was an interesting and, we think, proper distinction. Writers sometimes clean up the grammar of the person they are quoting, or may sometimes mistakenly misquote. Journalism can be defined as “history on the run”; that can make for unintentional errors.

But the high court would blow the whistle on writers who “deliberately or recklessly altered” a quotation. The court’s narrow and careful ruling should not expose the press to more libel suits. But it might provide a sensible and durable standard that is fair to both the citizen and the press.