Dwayne Monroe
..........
That's right.
The Natl. Enquirer has been sued many times by angry celebrities but rarely with success.
^^^ CB: Public figures must show actual malice ( a higher legal standard than non-public figures; the precedential case involved the NYTimes) to win defamation suits. So, the stories might be false, but the celebrity plaintiff still loses in court. A celebrity would not be likely to sue unless the story about them was in fact false ( but the newspaper lacked the _mens rea_ of actual malice, so the celebrity lost)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actual_malice
Actual malice in United States law is a condition required to establish libel against public officials or public figures and is defined as "knowledge that the information was false" or that it was published "with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." Reckless disregard does not encompass mere neglect in following professional standards of fact checking. The publisher must entertain actual doubt as to the statement's truth. This is the definition in only the United States and came from the landmark 1964 lawsuit New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which ruled that public officials needed to prove actual malice in order to recover damages for libel.
This term was not newly invented for the Sullivan case, but was a term from existing libel law. In many jurisdictions proof of "actual malice" was required in order for punitive damages to be awarded, or for other increased penalties. Since proof of the writer's malicious intentions is hard to provide, proof that the writer knowingly published a falsehood was generally accepted as proof of malice, under the assumption that only a malicious person would knowingly publish a falsehood. In the Sullivan case the Supreme Court adopted this term and gave it constitutional significance, at the same time defining it in terms of the proof which had previously been usual. (See Lewis, Anthony (1991). Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment)
Actual malice is different from common law malice which indicates spite or ill-will
This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com