A small note on libel/slander/defamation:
First, the term "libel" generally refers to written/published statements, while "slander" refers to spoken statements. Second, in order to successfully pursue a libel/slander claim, the plaintiff would have to demonstrate that not only is the statement false, but that it is also injurious to his/her reputation. The second part is often overlooked.
Here are some examples of how important the second part is: I remember in the early 1990s some newspapers in the UK published a story of how Princess Diana had personally rescued a homeless man from a lake in a London park in the middle of the night. This story was almost certainly fallacious, and the newspapers that printed it almost certainly knew it to be fallacious. However, they could be confident that they wouldn't come up against any libel issues, since even if Princess Diana HAD wanted to sue, she clearly wouldn't have been able to show that the articles were defamatory to her.
And it's not only about "positive" lies/distortions: if a person's reputation has already been damaged by proven allegations in a given area, then this opens the door for further allegations of a similar nature to be published, regardless of their actual veracity. This is why media outlets are comfortable publishing questionably-accurate stories about (for example) convicted child killers - they are secure in the knowledge that the subjects won't be able to claim that these stories damage their reputation, even if they can be proven to be false.
One final point: in the case of libel, the entity that publishes the statements in question can be held jointly and equally liable, regardless of whether the statements are attributable to the byline author or are direct/indirect quotes from another person. This has been tested in various courts. It's why media outlets and websites usually take such extreme care to legally check all content and to explicitly provide balance. In an interesting example of this, a top UK snooker player (apologies for those who don't know what the sport of snooker is - it's like pool but better
) was recently entrapped by a UK Sunday tabloid paper discussing the potential rigging of matches for money. It was a headline story across the UK media - this was before the General Election! Whenever other media outlets like the BBC reported the story, they consistently issued a disclaimer along the lines of "It must be stated that these are only allegations at this point, and there's no suggestion that he (the snooker player) has ever engaged in this sort of behaviour". The reason that the BBC and others were so careful in this regard is exactly because they would have laid themselves open to potential libel action otherwise - even though they were only "re-reporting" allegations that were originally made by another media outlet.
Hmm, I must go on a "concise writing" course............
