The right to free speech is a cornerstone of American democracy, but powerful individuals often seek to silence critics by using the courts. A pair of defamation lawsuits now pending in North Carolina illustrates this phenomenon, and it is precisely the kind of case the American Rights Alliance exists to scrutinize.
Noel Fritsch, publisher of the news website National File, has been named as a defendant in two separate defamation actions arising from a December article. The reporting addressed allegations involving public figures and referenced an audio recording that was already circulating on social media before the North Carolina Republican primary.
The first suit was filed by Jennifer Karpowicz Bland, a North Carolina attorney named in the reporting. A second followed from Judge Jerry Tillett, who also named additional defendants connected to the dissemination of the recording. In both cases, the plaintiffs seek not only money damages, but court orders compelling the removal of the articles and barring any similar publication in the future.
These plaintiffs are not merely asking to be compensated for harm they claim to have suffered. They are asking a court to take material down and to prohibit future speech on the subject, a prior restraint that strikes at the core of what the First Amendment protects.
Fritsch disputes the lawsuits entirely, maintaining that his reporting concerned matters of legitimate public concern and relied on information already in the public sphere. He points out that local authorities identified the voice and that investigators found no illegality in how the audio was acquired. He has characterized the suits as politically motivated efforts to punish and silence his coverage, and he has not retracted his reporting.
The American Rights Alliance takes no position on the truth of the competing factual claims, and we do not adopt the sharp personal characterizations Fritsch has leveled at the plaintiffs. No court has ruled on the merits, no findings of liability exist, and the parties dispute nearly everything about the recording’s origin and authenticity.
What concerns us is not who ultimately prevails on the facts. It is the machinery being used to fight, and what that machinery does to free expression, long before any verdict is reached. The high bar for public figures to prove defamation, established by New York Times v. Sullivan, is meant to protect robust coverage of public officials, even if it sometimes means that mistakes will be made.
However, the cost of defending against a defamation suit can be prohibitively expensive, even for a frivolous claim. This is the inconvenient reality that the phrase “you can have your day in court” obscures. Our legal system does not distribute the ability to litigate equally, and the party with more resources often prevails.
The chilling effect of these lawsuits extends far beyond the named defendant, sending a message to every other reporter, blogger, and small outlet watching: cover powerful people aggressively, and you may be next. Stories go unwritten, tips go unpursued, and editors quietly decide a subject is “not worth the legal exposure.” The public never learns what it was not allowed to read.
The American Rights Alliance regards the rising use of defamation litigation against independent media as one of the most serious free-speech threats of our era. The remedy is not to weaken defamation law for the genuinely defamed, but to make sure that defending protected speech does not require a fortune. Strong anti-SLAPP laws, statutes that let courts quickly dismiss meritless suits brought to silence speech on public matters, are the most direct fix.
The American Rights Alliance does not endorse any candidate, party, or the contents of any particular article. We defend a principle: that Americans, including independent journalists who report on judges, prosecutors, and politically connected figures, must be free to speak on matters of public concern without being financially destroyed for it.
