Defamation Risk Score — Verification, Sourcing and Right of Reply
Libel risk usually tracks reporting process rather than subject matter: how many people confirmed it, whether the subject was asked, and whether anyone wrote down why it mattered. This tool scores that process, not the words.
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Defamation Risk Score
Answer these questions about your story to get an indicative defamation risk score, referencing the Defamation Act 2013.
Not legal advice. This tool gives an illustrative indicator only, based on general principles of English and Welsh defamation law. Always seek qualified legal advice for any story carrying real defamation risk.
Answer all questions above to see your risk indicator.
How it works
- Seven dropdowns: whether the piece makes a factual claim about a person, whether that claim is verified, whether the subject is a public figure, how many independent sources support it, whether a right of reply was given, whether a truth defence is available, and whether public interest has been considered and documented.
- Each answer adds points. The heaviest single penalties are three points each for an unverified factual claim, for no right of reply having been sought, and for a truth defence you have said is unavailable. A private individual adds two, a single source adds two.
- The total is banded: 0–2 is “Lower risk” (green), 3–6 “Moderate risk” (amber), 7 or more “High risk” (red), with the red band telling you plainly not to publish without legal review.
- Alongside the band it prints the specific concerns your answers triggered, each tagged with the Defamation Act 2013 section it bears on — s.2 for truth, s.4(1)(b) for the reasonable-belief limb of the public interest defence, s.1 for serious harm.
- Note that despite the way this tool is described elsewhere on the site, it never asks whether anyone is identifiable, and it never asks how serious the reputational harm is. Both are inputs on the Defamation Risk Checklist instead.
When to use it
- On a single contested allegation, where you want the risk attached to that claim rather than to the article as a whole.
- When deciding whether a story can run on one source, and you need the sourcing penalty stated rather than argued.
- When the subject has ignored your approach and you are weighing whether “offered but refused” is enough.
- As a quick triage across a series of pieces, to decide which ones actually need to go to a lawyer.
What it does not do
- Not legal advice. The band is an indicative score from a fixed points table, not an assessment of your story.
- It has no identification input and no serious-harm input, so it cannot tell you whether anyone is identifiable from your copy or whether the harm crosses the s.1 threshold — the two questions a claimant has to answer first. Run the Defamation Risk Checklist for those.
- It never reads the article. “Verified” means whatever you decided it means when you chose it from the dropdown.
- The band thresholds are arbitrary. A story can sit in green on these seven questions and still be indefensible for a reason none of them covers — meaning, innuendo, repetition of a third party’s libel, or a claim about a company’s finances.
- England and Wales only. It does not address Scottish or Northern Irish defamation law, privacy, harassment or data protection claims that commonly run alongside libel.
More tools
This is one of the free tools on UK JournoHub. See the full tools index for the rest.
Related guides
Primary sources
- Defamation Act 2013 s.2 — truth— legislation.gov.uk
- Defamation Act 2013 s.4 — publication on a matter of public interest— legislation.gov.uk