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Originally Posted by pig
Kila you are wrong. :edit: and ASG
If tabloids printed false information, or indeed any paper they would be taken to court.
This is the scary thing about newspapers, 99% of what you read is actually true. Far to many cases have gone to court/been settled out of court because of inacurrate statements, these days what is published is mostly true and if push came to shove a newspaper will have evidence.
I will await Yahwe (and Furball) to back me up, but my idea is of defamation is
If I accused you of saying sleeping with another man whilst you were married.
I printed a story of that.
In a court of law defamation in England and Wales is different to a normal trial (ie innocent until proven guilty) the onus would be on me.
I would have to prove that you were indeed sleeping with another men.
Hence why what is published these days is mostly true.
Let's take the madeline mccann case for example. Rumours in the media are that her parents are swingers. Now without some hard evidence, the papers couldn't publish that (I am not saying that this makes them bad parents, but they left their kids alone whilst they went off, I am sure we can all do basic arithmatic...) Now without evidence of the parents being swingers ie photos and witness statements the papers can't publish this. Not only this but a court of law and perhaps most importantly a jury will feel emotionally involved with the madeline case so won't work in the favour of the paper.
As I say the scary thing is that most of what is published is in fact true.
A funny story I heard was that a paper said
"A CID officer from XYZ constablury is sleeping with a prostitute."
11 of the 12 CID officers sued the paper that said that and won.
So in conclusion, you are wrong kila. Most of what is written in papers is true. That is the scary part. As I said I will await the response of say Yahwe, until we can pass this as gospel, or at least an agreed opinion.
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It depends on the story itself and against who it is printed. With celebrities, unless it is a major story with really harsh claims, it is unlikely that they will get sued. It is not really worth the hassle of a two year legal battle for a couple of grand and a 1 inch retraction on page 27 for a front-page story of 'Celeb smokes crack in orgy with transvestite'. Although I suppose it helps to cast doubt on the true stories about them as well. this example is particularly important as these stories get reported all around the world so some could literally spend the rest of their lives in court fighting false claims.
In a case like this though it is different. there is no-one to sue really. I doubt the family would go after the tabloids (rather than the police, say) unless they print something rather terrible.
the press in this country is almost completely subserviant to officials. they are becoming little more than a mouthpiece for government agencies and big business. these days 'reporting' consists of little more than printing the crap they are sent. 'Gooseberrys: Natures Viagra!' probably comes from the International Gooseberry Sellers Ltd so hasa natural bias, but that won't make it into the story.
In the same way, they tend to print whatever the government/police/army say without question, as if it were gospel. the most obvious examples of this kind of lazy (if we're being kind, propagandised, if we're not) reporting is the Iraq War, where papers like the Sun printed all of the lies without questioning it once. the same can be seen in the lies regarding the shooting of the Brazilian on 7/7 (saw wires, heavy jacket, run from the police. All are lies) and these were reported unquestioningly. When it was proved wrong, thee was no front page retraction, it was slightly mentioned in future stories but it just passed a lot of people by.
It disturbs me that you give these multi-national corporations the benefit of the doubt, when they have clearly not earnt it.