The plaintiff in defamation cases should have to prove the falsity of a statement, and the law in the Republic and in Britain should be changed in this respect, according to Mr Anthony Lewis, a New York Times columnist. This already holds in the US.
Mr Lewis cited the case taken by former the British Conservative politician Jonathan Aitken against the Guardian last year. The newspaper had to prove a statement concerning who had paid a hotel bill for Mr Aitken in Paris when he was a government minister responsible for arms sales.
Had a reporter been unable to find certain hotel records the Guardian would have lost an important case.
If the burden of proof did not lie with the media it would be much better for the press and press freedom, he said. Defamation is the only legal instance where the burden of proof lies with the defendant.
Mr Lewis, one of the foremost US commentators on issues to do with freedom of expression, spoke of an increasing vulgarity in the US which is led by television.
The story concerning President Bill Clinton and the alleged affair with a White House intern was symptomatic of this. But he agreed it was a "great story" and that everyone would want to read it. He was worried about the impact such coverage would have on US society, but did not know how such coverage could be stopped.
Television was now a vulgarising medium, he said. People would talk in public about issues that in the past they would not mention in front of "three people, let alone three million".
He spoke of the "Oprahisation" of US society, referring to the chat-show host Oprah Winfrey. Mr Clinton's story was part of that process. Referring to Mr Clinton's approval ratings, now standing at 79 per cent, Mr Lewis said that while the media were running with the story the American people were more sensible. The public might want to read it, but they had the sense to know what they wanted in a president and they did not want a puritan.
There was an element of hypocrisy: the public said tabloid television and newspapers were terrible, but continued to read and watch. There were signs that the public was fed up with the coverage of the Clinton-Lewinsky story.
But Mr Lewis was not pessimistic about the American press. Newspapers were better today than they were 10 years ago. There was more content and they were more interesting.
While the US had its tabloid press, it was in Britain that a tabloid culture had developed. Under the ownership of Mr Rupert Murdoch, the Times had ceased to be a great newspaper and had become a broadsheet tabloid. He recently called it "a shrill, hatchetwielding scandal sheet".