LIBEL RATHER THAN SLANDER (January 14, 2009)

A few days ago I was contacted by a British journalist who lives in Budapest and writes business and economic stories about Hungary, but he also writes about the countries in the region, primarily Slovenia. His main media outlets are the Financial Times and Economic Intelligence Unit. He was interested in my troubles with the court, about which he learned from one of the members of Motovun – Eco Town, but he immediately warned me that placing an article on such a topic would not be easy. We have exchanged several electronic-mail messages the last few days. At any rate, the first of his messages that I received this morning starts with a “small point,” as he put it. “In English,” he writes, “slander is spoken, and written is libel.” He added that many British and American people confound the two terms. “I stand corrected,” I responded to the British journalist at once. And so, I have been sued for libel rather than slander.