448 WHITE, J., dissenting can obtain. There must be some room for misstatement of fact, as well as for misjudgment, if the press and others are to function as critical agencies in our democracy concerning courts as for all other instruments of government." Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U. S. 331, 371-372 (1946) (Rutledge, J., concurring).10 For precisely such reasons, we have held that the contempt power may not be used to punish the reporting of judicial proceedings merely because a reporter "missed the essential point in a trial or failed to summarize the issues to accord with the views of the judge who sat on the case." Craig v. Harney, 331 U. S., at 375. See also Pennekamp v. Florida, supra. And "[w]hat a State may not constitutionally bring about by means of a criminal statute is likewise beyond the reach of its civil law of libel." New York Times, 376 U. S., at 277. The First Amendment insulates from defamation liability a margin for error sufficient to ensure the avoidance of crippling press self-censorship in the field of reporting public judicial affairs. To be adequate, that margin must be both of sufficient breadth and predictable in its application. In my view, therefore, the actual-malice standard of New York Times must be met in order to justify the imposition of liability in these circumstances. MR. JUSTICE WHITE, dissenting. I would affirm the judgment of the Florida Supreme Court because First Amendment values will not be furthered in any way by application to this case of the fault standards newly drafted and imposed by Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323 (1974), upon which my 10 Judge Frank's opinion of the phenomenon and its cause appears to have been roughly comparable. J. Frank, Courts On Trial 1-3 (Atheneum ed. 1963). Brother REHNQUIST relies, or the fault standards required by Rosenbloom v. Metromedia, Inc., 403 U. S. 29 (1971), upon which my Brother BRENNAN relies; and because, in any event, any requisite fault was properly found below. The jury found on ample evidence that the article published by petitioner Time, Inc., about respondent Firestone was false and defamatory. This Court has held, and no one seriously disputes, that, regardless of fault, "there is no constitutional value in false statements of fact." "They belong to that category of utterances which . . . are of such slight social value as'" to be worthy of no First Amendment protection. Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., supra, at 340, quoting Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 572 (1942). This Court's decisions from New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964), through Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., supra, holding that the Constitution requires a finding of some degree of fault as a precondition to a defamation award, have done so for one reason and one reason alone: unless innocent falsehood is allowed as a defense, some true speech will also be deterred. Thus "[t]he First Amendment requires that we protect some falsehood in order to protect speech that matters,” Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., supra, at 341 (emphasis supplied), e. g., true fact statements. In light of these decisions, the threshold question in the instant case should be whether requiring proof of fault on the part of Time, Inc., as a precondition to recovery in this caseand thereby possibly interfering with the State's desire to compensate respondent Firestone-will contribute in any way to the goal of protecting "speech that matters." I think it would not. At the time of the defamatory publication in this case-December 1967-the law clearly authorized lia 448 WHITE, J., dissenting bility without fault in defamation cases of the sort involved here.* Whatever the chilling effect of that rule of law on publication of "speech that matters" in 1967 might have been, it has already occurred and is now irremediable. The goal of protecting "speech that maters" by announcing rules, as this Court did in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., supra, and Rosenbloom v. Metromedia, Inc., supra, requiring fault as a precondition to a defamation recovery under circumstances such as are involved here, is fully achieved so long as fault is required for cases in which the publication occurred after the dates of those decisions. This is not such a case. Therefore, to require proof of fault in this case—or in any other case predating Gertz and Rosenbloom in which a private figure is defamed-is to interfere with the State's otherwise legitimate policy of compensating defamation victims without furthering First Amendment goals in any way at all. In other areas in which the Court has developed a rule designed not to achieve justice in the case before it but designed to induce socially desirable conduct by some group in the future, the Court has declined to apply the rule to fact situations predating its announcement, e. g., Williams v. *Konigsberg v. State Bar of California, 366 U. S. 36, 49, and n. 10 (1961); Times Film Corp. v. Chicago, 365 U. S. 43, 48 (1961); Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476, 486–487 (1957); Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U. S. 250, 266 (1952); Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U. S. 331, 348-349 (1946); Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 572 (1942); Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U. S. 697, 715 (1931). The majority concludes that respondent Firestone was neither a "public official" nor a "public figure," New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964); Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U. S. 130 (1967), and therefore that this case does not fall within any exception, then announced, to the Court's statements that commonlaw defamation rules do not violate the First Amendment. In this respect I agree with the majority. MARSHALL, J., dissenting 424 U.S. United States, 401 U. S. 646, 653 (1971) (plurality opinion). The Court should follow a similar path here. In any event, the judgment of the court below should be affirmed. My Brother REHNQUIST concludes that negligence is sufficient fault, under Gertz, to justify the judgment below, and that a finding of negligence may constitutionally be supplied by the Florida Supreme Court. I agree. Furthermore, the state court referred to Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., by name; noted the "convincing evidence of . . . negligence" in the case; pointed out that a careful examination of the divorce decree would have "clearly demonstrated" that the divorce was not grounded on adultery, as reported by Time, Inc.; and stated flatly: "This is a flagrant example of 'journalistic negligence.'" 305 So. 2d 172, 178 (1974). It appears to me that the Florida Supreme Court has made a sufficiently "conscious determination," ante, at 463, of the fact of negligence. If it is Gertz that controls this case and if that decision is to be applied retroactively, I would affirm the judgment. MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL, dissenting. The Court agrees with the Supreme Court of Florida that the "actual malice" standard of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964), does not apply to this case. Because I consider the respondent, Mary Alice Firestone, to be a "public figure" within the meaning of our prior decisions, Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323 (1974); Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U. S. 130 (1967), I respectfully dissent. I Mary Alice Firestone was not a person "first brought to public attention by the defamation that is the subject of the lawsuit." Rosenbloom v. Metromedia, Inc., 403 U. S. 29, 78, 86 (1971) (MARSHALL, J., dissenting). On the contrary, she was "prominent among the '400' of 448 MARSHALL, J., dissenting Palm Beach society," and an "active [member] of the sporting set," 271 So. 2d 745, 751 (Fla. 1972), whose activities predictably attracted the attention of a sizable portion of the public. Indeed, Mrs. Firestone's appearances in the press were evidently frequent enough to warrant her subscribing to a press-clipping service. Mrs. Firestone brought suit for separate maintenance, with reason to know of the likely public interest in the proceedings. As the Supreme Court of Florida noted, Mr. and Mrs. Firestone's "marital difficulties were . . well-known," and the lawsuit became "a veritable cause celebre in social circles across the country." Ibid. The 17-month trial and related events attracted national news coverage, and elicited no fewer than 43 articles in the Miami Herald and 45 articles in the Palm Beach Post and Palm Beach Times. Far from shunning the publicity, Mrs. Firestone held several press conferences in the course of the proceedings. These facts are sufficient to warrant the conclusion that Mary Alice Firestone was a "public figure" for purposes of reports on the judicial proceedings she initiated. In Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., supra, at 352, we noted that an individual can be a public figure for some purposes and a private figure for others. And we found two distinguishing features between public figures and private figures. First, we recognized that public figures have less need for judicial protection because of their greater ability to resort to self-help: "public figures usually enjoy significantly greater access to the channels of effective communication and hence have a more realistic opportunity to counteract false statements than private individuals normally enjoy." 418 U. S., at 344. As the above recital of the facts makes clear, Mrs. Firestone is hardly in a position to suggest that she lacked access to the media for purposes relating to her lawsuit. |