Public relations and libel law

Abstract

This article examines the current problematic relationship between public relations and libel law in the case where corporations and their executives might want to protect their reputations by initiating a libel suit. Because of the way that courts have been applying the public figure designation to organizations and their executives, public relations and other communications activities intended to enhance the reputation of the organization and its executives may, paradoxically, undermine the ability of the organization and its executives to protect that reputation when they believe it has been libeled. A series of recent lower court decisions have found that organizations and their executives may lose their ability to seek successful redress for defamatory statements because of their public involvement, as evidenced often by communications activities of the sort public relations executives would recommend as a matter of course.