Thursday, April 13, 2017

Don't Mess With Melania: Daily Mail Issues Formal Apology, Pays Damages And Expenses In Libel Suit

Words have meaning, and publishing defamatory false words carries consequences.

The UK's Daily Mail published scurrilous allegations about Melania Trump last summer, which turned out to be blatantly untrue. Mrs. Trump took them to court, and today....

The Mail Online website and the Daily Mail newspaper published an article on 20th August 2016 about Melania Trump which questioned the nature of her work as a professional model, and republished allegations that she provided services beyond simply modelling. The article included statements that Mrs. Trump denied the allegations and Paulo Zampolli, who ran the modelling agency, also denied the allegations, and the article also stated that there was no evidence to support the allegations. The article also claimed that Mr and Mrs Trump may have met three years before they actually met, and "staged" their actual meeting as a "ruse."

We accept that these allegations about Mrs Trump are not true and we retract and withdraw them. We apologise to Mrs Trump for any distress that our publication caused her. To settle Mrs Trump's two lawsuits against us, we have agreed to pay her damages and costs. 

A fair observation to note that this retraction was probably written by lawyers, and probably is verbatim part of the settlement between the parties.

Congratulations, Mrs. Trump. Here's hoping your pushback will have a settling effect upon the press here in the colonies as well.



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