🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <7h4r4k$qjh$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,  <eruction@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>In article <1999-04-24-02-00.0@chch.demon.co.uk>,
>  Charles Bryant <n94116989.ch@chch.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> I don't think that can be so clear cut. News has trolling, which does
>> not seem to appear in other media, so it's quite possible for someone to
>> post an article with quite outrageous views just for the fun of seeing
>> who gets taken in by it, and when the author admits they were only
>> trolling, those taken in may feel that they have harmed their own
>> reputations by showing how gullible they are. In a medium with this
>> phenomenon it is certainly arguable that material is subject to a much
>> more sceptical appraisal, leading to material which is quite serious in
>> other media being innocuous here, and material which is totally
>> unacceptable in other media being fairly mild here.
>
>Yes, this is a well-tried argument that has cost the likes of Private Eye,
>Scallywag and various other satirical publications much money in the past.
>Saying you were only joking doesn't work, I'm afraid.

That is not my argument at all. For Private Eye to be able to use it
the following would have to be true:

In general:
	1) they frequently publish articles with outrageous views
	   i.e. trolling articles
	2) this is done as a prank to make people indignant at the
	   articles
	3) the authors of such articles then poke fun at people who
	   took the articles seriously

And specifically:
	4) an article is published which is attributed to someone
	   other than the true author
	5) the alleged author sues on the grounds that people would
	   take the article seriously

Since publications do not frequently publish trolling articles,
readers would usually assume that an articles reflects the views of
the author, and falsely attributing an article might cause them harm.