Robin, it's all in how you present the "facts". If you get an anonymous call that "the CEO is a convicted felon, trust me", and you spread those exact words on SI, if that's not true, I'd think that would be textbook libel. Say someone on Yahoo posts that information and you quote that person (assuming that person is not also you under another name), that wouldn't be libel, IMO, unless you continue to cite that post without making any further attempts to verify it. If, instead, your source was a "reputable" news article, my guess is you could probably get away with citing that at will. If the source is an SEC document, I would think citing that continually would actually be considered a public service ;^).
The safest thing to avoid libel is to not say things directly. If a CEO cancels three contracts in a row, to use your example, and the stock price tanks, instead of saying "the CEO is a crook and should have his ass sued", try saying something like "CEO's have been sued bigtime for less than that."
BTW, you're "I canceled those PRs because to save my daughter's life at the hands of kidnappers" analogy is just a variation on the "the reason I stole was to feed my starving children". That sort of thing doesn't usually hold up in court unless you can really prove extenuating circumstances.
- Jeff
P.S. I'm not a lawyer so please treat everything I say as "in my opinion". |
