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Ironies abound in libel law.Most libel suits fail, yet suits persist.Constitutional privileges present onerous obstacles to success in public cases, yet public plaintiffs continue to sue.Litigation is prolonged and expensive, yet plaintiffs continue to carry suits to trial.Finally, while the law of libel is supposed to protect reputation, "[t]he few plaintiffs who succeed resemble the remnants of an army platoon caught in an enemy crossfire." 1 These ironies prompted Professors Gilbert Cranberg and John Soloski, both of the School of Journalism at the University of Iowa, and me to begin the Iowa Libel Research Project.Our objective has been to probe beneath the surface of libel suits to better understand the dynamics of the libel dispute and the actions and motivations of the parties to it.Following Marc Franklin's important groundbreaking work, 2 we undertook a detailed analysis of the libel litigation process as a whole, from the appearance of the allegedly libelous story, through discussions between plaintiff and attorney, to the outcome of the case.We were particularly interested in examining why plaintiffs sue and what the media can do to prevent suit.We also wanted to know how plaintiffs and defendants feel about the disputed stories, the media, and their experience with litigation.Our ultimate objective has been to assess and test the susceptibility of libel disputes to nonjudicial forms of resolution.We based our libel litigation study on a wide variety of sources.First, we analyzed and coded virtually all cases between 1974 and 1984 with a reported opinion or order in which a libel or privacy claim was the principal or a major legal theory.Second, we supplemented these cases
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