[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.