Comment by megameter
6 years ago
Wealth is one of the classic ones that journalists like stretching. My mom, a classical musician, got asked about her wages, and after some back and forth (since they varied by the job, of course), she was given this more specific question: "what's the most you made from a gig?" The sum she replied with, of course, made it into the resulting magazine article as an hourly average. Cue the stinkeyes from colleagues.
This is so common in British press of lower quality: an engineer on £80K salary gets arrested for x,y,z. A man in his 30s left his £2M house before he decided to steal money from the donation box and etc.
Is it possible to sue for this kind of misrepresentation (lies), or do you need to prove financial (non social) damages?
In Britain: very unlikely. I think sometimes journalists know the exact salaries ( public servants) or simply guess based on job title. The same with house prices. Again, the chances of getting anything through courts are very slim.