Trivia

Paul Newman once said of this movie while publicizing The Verdict (1982): "I'd rather have the freedom to do the kind of pictures like The Verdict (1982) ... I enjoyed kicking the beejeezus out of the press in Absence of Malice (1981)."

According to Frank DiGiaomo, Paul Newman stated that this picture was a direct attack on the New York Post because it had published a caption with a photo of Newman, a caption that Newman stated was inaccurate. A row occurred, and the Post allegedly banned his name from appearing in the paper.

At around the time the picture launched in theaters, lead actor Paul Newman said: "I would say that 90% of what people read about me in the newspapers is untrue. Ninety percent is garbage. [Reporters] are expected to come up with something sensational every night of the week to keep their readers' noses buried in the pages, and, well, you tell me. If nothing's happening, what do you do? Well, in their case, they make it up."

One of the film's movie posters/press ads featured a long descriptive preamble that read: "Suppose you picked up this morning's newspaper and your life was a front page headline... And everything they said was accurate... But none of it was true. The D.A., Feds and the police set her up to write the story that explodes his world. Now he's going to write the book on getting even."

According to writer Kurt Luedtke in the DVD special feature The Story Behind Absence of Malice (2004), the film's story was inspired by the media law legal case of Times v. Sullivan [i.e., The New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964)]. Luedtke summarized this case by saying that American libel laws, due to the precedent set by this case, indicate that truth is not always necessary to journalism in situations involving public figures. As such, a newspaper can effectively make a bad mistake and hurt a public figure, and the latter cannot always collect damages for it.