On The Defense Against The Press Infringement

News is one of the best ways to know and understand what happened recently, and it is the main way to get the information resources in the information society. In China, Media is the mouthpiece of China Communism Party and the government, which makes great contribution to promote ideas and construction of politics, economics and culture. In recent years, with the continuous development of information activities, people's awareness of public rights are growing, the cases against the reputation right by press occurred from time to time. The freedom of media is the basis of media's spreading activities. The media's coverage, comment, criticism and supervision on public affairs and social life inevitably result in conflicts against people's private right. The most outstanding performance of this conflict is the cases of defamation cases such as media against reputation right. For this kind of disputes resolution and trail of cases, the"People's Republic of Tort Liability Law"does not have relevant regulations. China does not have relevant laws as"Media Law", but the Supreme Court's judicial interpretations have some basic regulation on personality rights, such as defamation cases and private right cases. In judicial practice, media's defense reasons which are not cleared by laws, regulations or interpretations were not supported by the court, the media are always in a passive position. So clear and perfect defense reasons for defamation cases are effective protection for media to ensure the performance duties and play an active role.This article studies the regulations on defense reasons of media defamation cases from the perspective of legislation, analyzes the typical judicial practical cases and the defense reasons used by media, and compares the relevant information between common law system and civil law system, gives some advice on promoting the defense reasons for media defamation cases, tries to balance the interests between media freedom and private rights, not only protect the private right, but promote the media's function, promote the social civilization and progress.