3 ms·

As I stated above, and assuming he is a private citizen, he probably could win that libel case.

• ajross 14y ago
  That's a good point, I'd forgotten about the private citizen distinction. Though again, the fact that the posited story was on the front page of the newspaper would sort of be an existence proof that the target was a public figure. Citizens whose lives are newsworthy are public, sort of by definition.
  • scott_s 14y ago
    I was assuming he was positing it as an absurd example: he is clearly not a public figure, and was wrongly accused of something on the front page. Also, the distinction between public figure and private citizen is clearly not whether or not they are newsworthy; such a distinction, as you point out, would always come up "public figure" by definition. I was going to explain the rational used, but Wikipedia to the rescue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_figure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_figure