What does the Supreme Court ruling mean for bloggers?

A question put on my earlier post was, in effect, what does the Supreme Court ruling really mean?

In some sense not much. A wealthy plaintiff can sue a blogger and even if the defence applies, it will be tens of thousands of dollars spent before the blogger is vindicated. But that said, here's what I understand the effect of the ruling to be.

If you are reporting on an issue of public interest -- say land redevelopment or the bias of an official -- you are allowed to be wrong factually so long as you took reasonable steps to try to ensure you had the facts right.

So, if you allege that I have been, say, bribing police to turn a blind eye to traffic offences (clearly a matter of public interest) if you asked police officers and some said "yes, Morton has paid bribed" and you reviewed the cases I did and saw they seemed to vanish because the police officer didn't come to court, and you tried to interview me to get my side of the story, and everything pointed to my guilt then you would have a defence should it turn out I sued and I hadn't been paying bribes.

In effect, if you exercise due diligence in trying to make sure your facts are right you will have a defence.

Of course, that's a pretty high standard for an investigating blogger -- maybe the Toronto Star can meet the test but I doubt I ever could.

Hope this helps!!!