<P> The Supreme Court held that news publications could not be sued for libel by public officials unless the plaintiffs were able to establish actual malice in the false reporting of a news story . The Court ruled for The Times, 9--0 . The rule of law applied by the Alabama courts was found constitutionally deficient for its failure to provide safeguards for freedom of speech and of the press, as required by the First and Fourteenth Amendment . The decision further held that even with the proper safeguards, the evidence presented in the case was insufficient to support a judgment for Sullivan . In sum the court ruled that "the First Amendment protects the publication of all statements, even false ones, about the conduct of public officials except when statements are made with actual malice (with knowledge that they are false or in reckless disregard of their truth or falsity)." </P> <P> The decision allowed newspapers more freedom to report on the widespread chaos and police abuse during the Civil Rights Movement . </P> <P> The Court held that a public official suing for defamation must prove that the statement in question was made with actual malice . That phrase refers to knowledge or reckless lack of investigation, rather than its ordinary meaning of malicious intent . In his concurring opinion, Justice Black explained, "' Malice,' even as defined by the Court, is an elusive, abstract concept, hard to prove and hard to disprove . The requirement that malice be proved provides at best an evanescent protection for the right critically to discuss public affairs and certainly does not measure up to the sturdy safeguard embodied in the First Amendment ." </P> <P> The term "malice" came from existing libel law, rather than being invented in the case . In many jurisdictions, including Alabama, where the case arose, proof of "actual malice" (actual knowledge of falsity, or reckless disregard for the truth) was required for punitive damages other increased penalties . Since a writer's malicious intent is hard to prove, proof that the writer knowingly published a falsehood was generally accepted as proof of malice, under the assumption that only a person with ill intent would knowingly publish something false . In Hoeppner v. Dunkirk Printing Co., 254 N.Y. 95 (1930), similarly, the court said: </P>

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