Defamation Risk Checklist for UK Publication — Defamation Act 2013

Most libel exposure is not created at the moment of publication but in the weeks before it, when nobody wrote down whether a defence actually exists. The Defamation Act 2013 gives you truth, honest opinion, public interest and privilege — but only if the evidence to run them was gathered while the story was still being reported.

Last reviewed: 24 August 2026Next review due: 24 August 2027

How it works

You answer ten yes/no/unsure questions covering identification, defamatory meaning, serious harm, truth, honest opinion, the s.4 public interest defence, privilege, right of reply, your evidence file, and whether a media lawyer has read it.
The scoring is a short rule chain, not a points total. Answering “no” to identification, or “yes” to identification but “no” to defamatory meaning, short-circuits straight to Low. Otherwise the baseline is Medium, dropping to Low-Medium if you say serious harm is unlikely.
One step of relief is given if ANY of truth, honest opinion, public interest or privilege is answered “yes” — the tool does not weigh which defence, or how strong it is. One step is added for each of “no right of reply” and “no evidence file”, so those two answers alone can push a story to High.
It then prints a list of required actions before publication, generated from the specific gaps you disclosed — identify a defence, build the evidence file, put the allegations to the subject, get a legal read, document the public interest reasoning.
Everything is evaluated in your browser from your own answers. Nothing is uploaded, and no draft is read.

When to use it

At the commissioning stage, so the evidence file and the right-of-reply approach are planned in rather than bolted on the night before.
Before a legal read, to arrive with the gaps already listed rather than making the lawyer find them.
When an investigation has changed shape mid-reporting and the original defence no longer covers what you now intend to say.
As a shared vocabulary in an editorial conference where not everyone in the room is a lawyer.
On a story about a company, where the serious harm test requires serious financial loss rather than reputational damage alone.

What it does not do

This is not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for a media lawyer. It cannot create a defence you do not have.
It never sees your copy. Identification, defamatory meaning and serious harm are all judged by you, on your own reading of your own draft — and the meaning a court finds is frequently not the meaning the writer intended.
A “yes” to any single defence question buys the same one-step reduction regardless of how weak that defence actually is. A shaky honest-opinion argument scores identically to documented, provable truth.
It applies the law of England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland differ, and the serious harm threshold in s.1 does not apply in Scotland in the same way.
It says nothing about limitation, jurisdiction, publication to a third party, malicious falsehood, harassment, data protection, or the separate privacy claim that often accompanies a libel claim.

More tools

This is one of the free tools on UK JournoHub. See the full tools index for the rest.

Primary sources

Defamation Act 2013 s.1 — serious harm— legislation.gov.uk
Defamation Act 2013 s.2 — truth— legislation.gov.uk
Defamation Act 2013 s.4 — publication on a matter of public interest— legislation.gov.uk