Libel law, you see, is a terrible constraint upon journalists, so any legal trimming of the law is most welcome. As it is, libel law prevents journalists from writing or saying what they actually know, instead of relaying a few tedious facts. After years of covering a beat, a journalist may know perfectly well that such and such a captain of industry is a tyrannical asshole with the attention span of a rutting frat boy, or that the Minister of Whatever is so mentally challenged that his staff do not consider him fit to open a door unassisted. But such painful truths cannot be reported like car crashes because they are personal remarks that lie somewhere off in the shade of objectivity. Judge MacDonald's ruling pierces this gloomy region like a shaft of June sunlight.
All doctors are greedheads.
All editors are illiterate. In its place are business models that adhere to the language of demographics, target markets and communities of interest. When a public mutates into a target audience, something good happens, along with something dangerous. Certainly, consumers are more likely to get relevant or useful information. Model railroaders are better informed by a specialty magazine than an occasional story about model railroading on a 24-hour news channel.