July 24, 2004

'My Life', the British way

In an interesting piece in the New York Times today, Edward Wyatt reports that Bill Clinton "authorized changes to a dozen or more passages" of his recent memoir before publishing it in Britain in June. The majority of the changes had to do with differences between American and British libel laws; some of the book's passages about Ken Starr were, shall we say, less flattering in the eyes of Brits than in those of Yanks.

Here's the one example of a changed passage that Wyatt reports. In the American version,

Mr. Clinton speaks of Mr. Starr's "continuing efforts to coerce people into making false charges against Hillary and me, and to prosecute those who refused to lie for him."

In the British version, the quoted passage reads:

"continuing efforts to coerce people into making charges against Hillary and me, and to prosecute those who refused to tell him what he wanted to hear."

Wyatt goes on to (briefly) explain the fundamental difference between British and American libel laws that prompted the changes:

Britain's libel laws are almost the opposite of those in the United States. In Britain the burden of proof is on the defendant, with the law essentially assuming that a published statement is false and requiring proof that it is true. In the United States, however, if the plaintiff is a public figure, like Mr. Starr, he or she must prove both that what was reported was false and that the publisher either knew that or printed the statements with reckless disregard for their possible falsehood.

I'm sure the legal eagles who reviewed all this know what they're doing, but this has made me just a little bit curious about exactly how libel laws work. I imagine two possibilities in this case:

  1. It has already been established beyond reasonable doubt (though not necessarily in a court of law) that Starr coerced people to do things and prosecuted those who refused to do things. However, it has not already been established beyond reasonable doubt that Starr coerced people to lie or prosecuted those who refused to lie. The relevant changes to the passage thus properly separate fact and allegation.
  2. It is easier to defend the allegation that Starr coerced people to do things and prosecuted those who refused to do things than it is to defend the allegation that Starr coerced people to lie and prosecuted those who refused to lie -- easier enough to make the relevant changes to the passage worth the effort.

It seems to me that it is already pretty damaging to Starr's reputation to accuse him of coercing people to do things and of prosecuting those who refused to do things, and if this hasn't been established as in (1) above, then Starr has a solid libel case against Clinton('s publisher) -- at least in Britain. My curiosity is more about (2), though: is the substitution of lie for do things so much more damaging to Starr's reputation that it would worry the British publisher about being sued and losing? I just don't know, but I would think not.

(An almost totally unrelated aside: the title of the NYT article is "Changing His 'Life' to Suit British Law". The single quotes around Life are of course supposed to refer to the title of Clinton's memoir. But the title is not Life; it's My Life. Yes, the My is a possessive pronoun referring to Clinton, and the NYT article title has His more or less in its place. But does that by itself license the omission of My from the book's title, or is the desire for a cute title also necessary?)

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Posted by Eric Bakovic at July 24, 2004 04:25 PM