Page "New York Times Co. v. Sullivan" Paragraph 4

The Times did subsequently publish a retraction of the advertisement upon the demand of Governor John Patterson of Alabama, who asserted that the publication charged him with " grave misconduct and ... improper actions and omissions as Governor of Alabama and ex-officio chairman of the State Board of Education of Alabama.

" When asked to explain why there had been a retraction for the Governor but not for Sullivan, the Secretary of the Times testified: " We did that because we didn't want anything that was published by the Times to be a reflection on the State of Alabama and the Governor was, as far as we could see, the embodiment of the State of Alabama and the proper representative of the state and, furthermore, we had by that time learned more of the actual facts which the ad purported to recite and, finally, the ad did refer to the action of the state authorities and the Board of Education presumably of which the Governor is the ex-officio chairman ...." On the other hand, he testified that he did not think that " any of the language in there referred to Mr. Sullivan.