Hacker News Reader

Claiming a journalist makes "false claims" and is "misleading" could be injurious to their reputation as a journalist. Which would hurt them in their business or profession.

It's not a slam dunk for him by any means, but I can understand why he filed.

View on HN

The bar for libel is high in the US. Something could be false, misleading and injurious to reputation and not be libel. Particularly if the person in question is a public figure, which is defined very broadly.

Ironically John Stossell has actually been caught making false and misleading claims previously. He had to know filing this would bring those episodes back up, so I don't know why he filed.

Same reason Trump filed so many pointless libel suits. So that we would talk about them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com