Once upon a time in 1964 in the land of New York City, there was a newspaper company called the New York Times.

One day in March, the New York Times decided to publish an ad in their newspaper in support of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr who was believed by some to be lying to the American people.

After the ad was published, a man by the name of L.B. Sullivan, the Public Safety Commissioner of the town where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was charged, felt insulted by the ad and asked the New York Times to retract their ad.

The New York Times did not follow L.B. Sullivan's request and L.B. Sullivans filed a libel action lawsuit against the New York Times in the state of Alabama.

Libel (n.)- a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; written defamation.

The state court of Alabama ruled in Sullivan's favor but this brought up a bigger question to the United States Supreme Court.

Did Alabama's libel law unconstitutionally infringe on the First Amendment's freedom of speech and freedom of press protections? This was the real question.

That question was unanimously decided on by the Supreme Court in what is known as the case of the New York Times Company v. Sullivan. The Supreme Court decided in favor of the New York Times and that the Alabama libel law was seen as unconstitutional under the First Amendment's freedom of speech.

This Supreme Court case is important because it laid some of the frameworks for what the media can do and also can be looked back upon in debates on the First Amendment and how it is interpreted.