Publication Date March 11, 2025
Recently, it seems like so many things we in the U.S. have taken for granted are in danger of being eliminated: free speech/expression, right to vote, right of bodily autonomy, etc. It also seems like there are some very brave journalists who are working to alert us to the dangers of our current slide into autocracy. David Enrich, the New York Times Business Investigations Editor, is one of those brave people, and his new book Murder The Truth strives to define and to alert those who will pay attention to an ongoing campaign by powerful forces to silence dissent and maintain their power.
Anyone listening to campaign rhetoric from the current administration has been inundated with commentary about the press, with words and phrases like “nasty,” “dishonest,” and “enemy of the people” thrown around frequently. The President has also campaigned on wanting more laws that will LIMIT the ability of the press to cover the political scene.
It’s no secret that there is an effort to get rid of the protection afforded journalists against libel or defamation lawsuits. That protection dates back sixty-plus years, to the Supreme Court decision known as New York Times v. Sullivan (or “the Sullivan decision”). That decision established that public officials can only win a libel suit by proving the statement was made with “actual malice,” meaning with knowledge it was false or with reckless disregard for the truth.
In “Murder the Truth,” Enrich documents a well-funded effort to undo that protection.Referring to the N.Y. Times, he contends that “…basically every time we were starting to report on a powerful person or a powerful institution, we were on the receiving end of threatening letters from that person’s lawyers.” He recognized that “The New York Times has resources and very good lawyers. And so we’re equipped to deal with that. But it got me thinking what that experience would be like if I worked at a smaller news outlet or was an independent journalist…so I started calling around to journalists all over the country and began hearing these absolute horror stories about the experiences they had been through, either being threatened or sued or otherwise intimidated and bullied. The bottom line was that journalists and members of the public all over the country, based on my reporting, were really — they were shying away from stories that needed to be told, or in some cases were being sued out of business when they had the guts to actually tell the stories.”
This book is terrifying, thought-provoking, and deeply troubling for anyone who cares about the liberties most of us (I hope) continue to take for granted. There really are scary times, and although it is difficult to read about what is actually going on, I hope this will be widely read. Five stars, and a huge thank you to Mariner Books and NetGalley for providing a copy in exchange for my honest review.