In his acclaimed Treatise, Sack on Defamation, author Judge Robert D. Sack shows that “fake news” lies outside the defamation protections granted to the institutional media.

In the days after President Trump announced his “Fake News Awards”, Sack’s is an important point to keep in mind, as columnist Alfred Hunt writes in Bloomberg View, because it means it’s unnecessary to change libel law to make it harder to deliberately disseminate false information–it is already actionable under our current law. In addition, Sack reminds us of the significance of protecting the high standards that public figures must meet in order to prove defamation against a media outlet.

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