"When he comes [...] to award damages, the court may take into account the [...] The defendant also has the following:
[...]
(4) He apologized for the publication, corrected or denied the thing constituting defamation [...] provided that the apology, correction or denial were published on the spot, to the extent and in the manner in which the defamation was published, and there were no qualifications."
- As stated above, the day after the demand letter and five days after the publication, the defendant published a correction on the same channel, in the same program, and in fact in a very similar manner to the manner in which the publication was carried out.
- Therefore, counsel for the defendants is correct that the aforementioned amendment constitutes a consideration - and a significant consideration - for awarding compensation at a low level.
- It might have been appropriate to suffice with symbolic compensation if the amendment was accurate and complete. However, the first part of the amendment - "I said that he did several months of military service" - is inaccurate because in the publication the defendant attributed to the plaintiff military service of two days and not of several months. In this sense, the amendment is not complete and contains additional inaccuracies that reflect on the amount of compensation above the threshold of symbolic compensation.
- In addition to the aforementioned amendment and its various characteristics, for the purpose of the amount of compensation, I have also considered the following considerations:
The scope of the public's exposure to the public constitutes a consideration for a high compensation ruling; the foreseeable intention to harm the plaintiff on the part of the defendant constitutes a consideration for a high compensation ruling (see section 7a(c) of the Prohibition of Defamation Law, which states that it is possible to award double compensation when the publication is intended to cause harm).
I also considered the plaintiff's procedural conduct that he did not present the amendment in full (but I will mention it partially in paragraph 17 of the statement of claim) and the fact that the plaintiff did not attach the relevant video clips to the statement of claim in a manner that allows one to get an impression of the publication and the amendment, and this conduct constitutes a consideration for awarding compensation at a low rate.