On Thu, 02 Jun 2011 19:13:29 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> That's what I'm saying. As far as I can tell, there's no actual *law*
>>> against printing outright lies in a newspaper. It's just considered
>>> poor journalistic practise by some.
>>
>> Depends on the lie.  Some lies certainly would be illegal if they were
>> libelous (for example).
> 
> Right. So if I say that vitamine C overdoses cause cancer, that's fine,
> but if I say that Dr Smith has proved that vitamine C overdoses cause
> cancer, that's libel. (?)

If you *say* it (and it's provably untrue), it's slander, not libel.  I 
used libel as an example, not as the end-all be-all of possible outcomes.

Slander = spoken
Libel = written

There are lots of laws that cover what is and isn't legal.  But it also 
takes someone to decide to go to court over something that someone says 
in order to get it tried.  As a civil matter, most often, which means in 
order to sue you have to have standing (ie, you have to have been defamed 
in some demonstrable way), and the cost of litigation often precludes 
people from doing so.

> In short, you can lie all you want, so long as you don't lie about
> people or commercial entities, or if you do, you make sure that whatever
> ficticious claims you make can't be rigoriously refuted.

No, as I said, that's one example.  ASA there in the UK has standards for 
advertising (similar to the consumer protection agency here in the US, 
AIUI).

Jim

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