Oxymoron Corner

I have been revising defamation this week, for my law exams in nine days time (ulp!) and I am still slightly perplexed by one of the ideas. It goes by then name of the 'responsible journalism' defence, seemingly coined without irony, and is based on the principle that you should not be able to sue a newspaper for libel if they have properly investigated the truth of a story, and have presented both sides using a balanced tone. It's not a huge surprise that the defence has never succeeded.