As the District Court explained, "Of course, Dershowitz said nothing of the kind[.]" App. 71a. The court was referring to how CNN defamed Professor Alan Dershowitz by systematically distorting his Senate floor statement in deliberately omitting his crucial qualifying language. The result was to turn Dershowitz's meaning on its head. Yet the Eleventh Circuit ruled that CNN's omission of crucial portions of a statement could not establish actual malice. This holding creates a circuit split and highlights how New York Times Co. v. Sullivan's actual-malice standard has devolved into near-absolute immunity for media defendants, even when they profoundly misrepresent verifiable public statements.

1. Whether a defendant's systematic omission of qualifying and limiting language from a plaintiff's recorded statement constitutes proof of actual malice under New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), sufficient to survive summary judgment, as the Second, Third, Fifth, and Ninth Circuits have held, and contrary to what the Eleventh Circuit held below.

2. Whether the actual malice standard established in Sullivan, or as extended by its progeny, should be discarded altogether or at least as to private citizens who are public figures.

3. Whether this Court should modify Sullivan's clear-and-convincing and burden-of-proof evidentiary standards.

Whether a defendant's systematic omission of qualifying language from a plaintiff's statement constitutes proof of actual malice under New York Times Co. v. Sullivan sufficient to survive summary judgment