Legal issues for your stand up material Page 2

Quote: Nat Wicks @ November 23 2010, 2:58 PM GMT

Anything presented as opinion is fine.

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I think not, Nat.

Try writing on your blog, "In my opinion, John Jones, headmaster of Bash Street Primary School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, is a paedophile" and see what happens.

I'm assuming Mr Jones and the primary school are real entities, of course.

Genuine opinions, not motivated by malice, and based upon established facts and well-reasoned arguments are safe if they are deemed 'fair comment' but whenever the words 'in my opinion' are preceded by or followed by an accusatory statement, you may find yourself facing an action for defamation.

And remember, you don't have to make a statement in order to be guilty of defamation: the most oblique suggestions of wrongdoing or dodginess can be defamatory too.

Good point. I think I worded that quite incorrectly. Not entirely sure what I meant.

Perhaps the biggest safeguard for speakers of words (rather than writers) is that, in order to sue for damages, the 'wronged party' must prove that they suffered loss as a result of the spoken words.

That's often impossible to do but be careful when you hit the big time - defamatory words spoken on TV or radio will be treated as libel (i.e. the equivalent of written words) and the 'wronged party' does not have to prove actual loss.