Professor of Law Gregory Germain spoke with the Sydney Morning Herald on President Donald Trump’s threat to sue the BBC for $5 billion over how a video was edited.
The president would need to prove that the BBC acted with “actual malice.” “They’ve got to meet the actual malice standard with New York Times versus Sullivan, which is a very tough standard,” said Germain.
The case, if filed, would also have to surmount another legal standard that protected publications that were “substantially true”, Germain said. The remarks that were spliced together were both things Trump said, even if the edit was poorly done, he said.
“I don’t think they should win a Pulitzer Prize for the editing, but it’s not defamatory,” Germain said. “What he’s alleging is that he doesn’t like the way they edited the video, he’s not alleging that they posted a deep fake or something.”