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Originally Posted by AllTheCheese
@Former DJ: Not a lawyer, but I doubt they would have to prove Bolling did it. The story only reports that a dozen sources ("current and former Fox colleagues") allege that he did it. I'd guess they would only have to prove they were truthful about their sources.
Assuming this is a standard defamation case, the standard is that you knew (or reasonably should have know) what you wrote was false. So the issue for the reporter would be if he knew (or should have known) that the sources were lying (assuming they were). In general, reporters are pretty strongly protected by this standard, but reporters can't just use a source who is obviously lying to you (such as the Rolling Stone case where there were lots of facts that contradicted the source's claim, but Rolling Stone still ran the story).