My community Newspaper published an article today about my brother using drugs. They interviewed my little sister who was staying at my dads...

Question

My community Newspaper published an article today about my brother using drugs. They interviewed my little sister who was staying at my dads house for the week and published things that not only were untrue "He has been using marijuana and extacy since he was thirteen" "he was kicked out of my dads house" (my bother left in a rage and my dad called the police to bring him back) but could damage his employment to a job he just got. They took the word of a thirteen year old with no regard or effort of any kind to check the facts. My family lives where this was published and we had to find out from my Grandfather and have received several calls from concerned fiends. Would we have a case for libel?

Answer

Probably not unless they were reckless or they simply reported what the 13 yr old said. If she did in fact say those things then there is no defamation if they reported it as a statement and not fact.