I heard an interesting talk from a lawyer yesterday about current US libel laws that suggested that publications that fact-check their work are at greater risk of losing a libel case than those who don't. Basically, one has to publish a lie both knowingly and maliciously to lose a libel case. Hence, if one unknowingly publishes a lie, then one is off the hook - regardless of how reckless or malicious that lie was.

Although libel itself is not an issue here, the point is, one result of the law is to dumb down publications even further than they would be naturally. Those journalists that strive for accuracy are punished; the reckless get off.