{
  "title": "Incidents: lawsuits against the press, national level, head of government Theodore Roosevelt",
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          "label": "RSF 2026 rank: 64th of 180",
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    {
      "slug": "1909-us-panama-canal-libel-prosecutions",
      "title": "United States: President Theodore Roosevelt seeks criminal libel indictments against the New York World and the Indianapolis News over Panama Canal reporting",
      "occurred_on": "1909-03-04",
      "occurred_on_precision": "day",
      "country": "US",
      "country_name": "United States",
      "continent": "north-america",
      "jurisdiction": "US",
      "level": "national",
      "tactic_primary": "insult_and_defamation_laws",
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        "lawsuits_against_press"
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      "leader_slug": "theodore-roosevelt",
      "leader_name": "Theodore Roosevelt",
      "issue_of_the_day": "The New York World and the Indianapolis News had published reports on who had profited from the United States' purchase of the Panama Canal, reports that Roosevelt disputed as libelous.",
      "outcome": "reversed",
      "outcome_on": "1911-01-03",
      "outcome_note": "The Supreme Court's 1911 ruling that no federal criminal libel law existed for offenses on federal enclaves left the World and the News without convictions and was later described as an early safeguard for the freedom of the press.",
      "stage": "punish",
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        "rank": 64,
        "of": 180,
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      },
      "era": "1900s",
      "granularity": "anchor",
      "status": "historical",
      "case_count": 0,
      "summary": "President Theodore Roosevelt sought federal criminal libel indictments against the publishers of the New York World and the Indianapolis News after they reported that he and other officials had profited from the United States' purchase of the Panama Canal. Federal courts in New York and Indiana dismissed the indictments, and the Supreme Court upheld that result in 1911.",
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