Research On The Defense Of Truth In News Tort Litigation ——Based On The Empirical Analysis Of 171 Cases

Defense of truth is the primary defense of the media in news infringement and an important defense in international libel law.Although the defense of truth has been widely applied in the judicial practice in China,there is no specific news tort law.And it does not have a clear interpretation of corresponding defense system,nor relevant legal provisions to explain relatively general lag.There are different understandings between the theoretical circle and the judicial practice about the defense,and no unified standard has been formed.It is not only bad for the news media to exercise the right of public opinion supervision,but also bad for effectively safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of civil subjects.However,only on the basis of correct understanding of the truth defense can the media better use it as a powerful cause in judicial practice,and regulate their own reporting behaviors from the perspective of the truth defense.This paper collects 171 judgments of news tort litigation from 2009 to 2019 and discusses the application and existing problems of the truth defense in judicial practice from an empirical perspective,discussing the legal basis,scope of application and identification standard.In addition,analyzing the judge’s criterion for the false reports of the media in judicial practice,and the correlation between the false and tort,this paper also makes an in-depth discussion on the defense reasons of truth.On this basis,this paper makes a comparative analysis of the development of the present factual defenses in China,combining with the relevant laws of the ocean law system and the civil law system in international libel law.Some Suggestions are put forward for the application and development of the defense of truth in China: On the one hand,it is necessary to improve the relevant news tort law in the legislative level,and build the defense system of news infringement;On the other hand,it is necessary to improve the criterion of confirming the truth of the report in judicial practice,to clarify the factual basis of the media’s defense.