The storry of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan began in the early 1960s in Montgomery, Alabama, during the nascent stages of the civil rights movement. The case involved an advertisement placed in the New York Times by a group hoping to raise funds for the defense of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. against perjury charges. Lester Bruce ("L.B.") Sullivan, the plaintiff, was one of three Montgomery public officials who brought libel suits against the Times based on minor errors in the advertisement. Although these libel suits against the Times--and other libel suits Southern officials filed against national news outlets--were aimed at curbing press coverage of the civil rights movement, in the end they backfired. In embracing an actual malice standard that protects all but the intentional lie, the Court freed the media to publish stories about the civil rights struggle without serious liability concerns. The "good guys" plainly won this case, in which a public official suffered little if any reputational harm and was plainly using libel law as a weapon to silence critics of segregation. But is it an example of a good case making bad law? Rather than constitutionalizing an entire body of state common law, the case could have been decided on more narrow grounds, and the balance the Court struck between vigorous public debate and the protection of reputation is precarious. Although primarily concerned about promoting the robust discussion of political affairs, the decision arguably fails to give meaningful protection to public debate because it stops short of providing absolute immunity for the criticism of public officials. On the other hand, the Court's decision to protect all but calculated falsehoods may unfairly force individuals to bear significant reputational harm in the name of the greater good. Just because the plaintiff in Sullivan did not suffer any real reputational harm does not mean that all libel plaintiffs are in the same boat; the Court's decision may have been an overreaction to a particularly bad set of facts in a charged political atmosphere. New York Times v. Sullivan is likely the most important First Amendment case the Supreme Court has ever decided. In this case, the Court first announced that the "central meaning" of the First Amendment is the protection of political debate and declared the nation's commitment to public discourse as "uninhibited, robust, and wide-open." There can be no doubt that these principles have had a huge impact on First Amendment jurisprudence. Its impact on journalism and public debate more generally, however, is less certain. In the digital age, the assumptions Sullivan made about the media, the marketplace of ideas, and the ability of individuals to defend their reputations through self-help measures are once again up for reconsideration.