'But there is no constitutional value in false statements of fact'

Niemanlab :: In the fourteen years that I practiced as a media defense lawyer before joining the Berkman Center, there was one sentence from one Supreme Court opinion that I learned to loathe above all others. It appears in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974) and reads as follows: “But there is no constitutional value in false statements of fact.”

[Jeffrey Hermes:] In a very fundamental sense, falsehoods and lies are integral to how we think as human beings. We see the world not only as it is, but as it might have been and as it could be.

Implications of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Stolen Valor - Written by Jeffrey Hermes, www.niemanlab.org