Dorothy Sucher, 77, whose $5-a-week reporting for a small-town newspaper 45 years ago led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that bolstered freedom of the press, died Aug. 22 at her home in Silver Spring, Md.
The cause was thyroid cancer, her husband, Joseph, said.
She was reporting for the nonprofit Greenbelt News Review in Greenbelt, Md., in 1965 when she covered City Council meetings where residents railed against a real estate developer's position.
Charles Bresler refused to sell the city a tract for a school unless it agreed to zoning variances on two of his other properties. Ms. Sucher's article quoted residents as saying that was "blackmail." He sued for libel and, in a decision upheld by Maryland's top court, was awarded $17,500 in damages.