6-712. RETRACTION BY NEWSPAPER, RADIO OR TELEVISION BROADCASTING STATION OR NETWORK OF STATIONS — LIMIT OF RECOVERY. In any action for damages for the publication of a libel, in a newspaper, or of a slander or libel by radio or television broadcast, plaintiff shall recover no more than actual damages unless a correction be demanded and be not published or broadcast, as hereinafter provided. Plaintiff shall serve upon the publisher, at the place of publication or broadcaster at the place of broadcast, a written notice specifying the statements and the manner in which said statements are claimed to be slanderous or libelous and demanding that the same be corrected. Said notice and demand must be served within 20 days after knowledge of the publication or broadcast of the statement claimed to be slanderous or libelous. If a correction be demanded within said period and be not published or broadcast in substantially as conspicuous a manner in said newspaper or on said radio or television broadcasting station as were the statements claimed to be slanderous or libelous, in a regular issue thereof published or broadcast within three (3) weeks after such service, plaintiff, if he proves such notice, demand and failure to correct, and if his cause of action be maintained, may recover general, actual and exemplary damages; provided that no exemplary damages may be recovered unless the plaintiff shall prove that defendant made the publication or broadcast with actual malice, and actual malice shall not be inferred or presumed from the publication or broadcast. A correction published or broadcast in substantially as conspicuous a manner in said newspaper or on said broadcasting station as the statements claimed in the complaint to be defamatory, prior to receipt of a demand therefor, shall be of the same force and effect as though such correction has been published or broadcast within three (3) weeks after a demand therefor.

History:

[6-712, added 1963, ch. 158, sec. 7, p. 459.]