The reporters stated that they “apologize for this reporting and for the distress caused to Mr. Soriano as a result”

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM , July 11, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- In another of a series of legal victories in the battle of UK businessman and philanthropist Walter Soriano to clear his name against false accusations made by US-based ‘news’ site Forensic News, two of their reporters publicly admitted false reporting. Both Jess Coleman and Robert J. DeNault, issued public statements on June 30, 2022, in which they apologized to Mr. Soriano for inadequate and unverified information in the Forensic News’ articles they wrote about him.

Forensic News founder Scott Steadman and the 2 reporters put out a series of articles in 2019-2020 that made claims about Mr. Soriano that were proven to be unfounded. While Mr. Soriano had asked for a retraction of the articles, Mr. Steadman repeatedly refused to do so and forced Mr. Soriano to take legal action to clear his name. The public admission of Forensic News’ own reporters of their stories’ inaccuracy is a victory for veracity.

In a statement titled “Public Statement concerning Walter Soriano”, which the 2 reporters published on their Twitter accounts, they explained that a series of articles and a podcast authored and published by Forensic News regarding Mr. Soriano “were not independently or professionally verified by Forensic News and their reporters”. These articles included various allegations against Mr. Soriano by 3rd parties in other media publications.

Mr. Coleman stated that various allegations made by him against Soriano were speculative and in retrospect – without adequate basis. Mr. Denault acknowledges that the reporting he contributed to was based on circumstantial and inadequate evidence which was not independently verified.

The statement by Coleman and DeNault follows a lawsuit (Case No: QB-2020-002450) filed in July 2020 in the UK by Mr. Soriano after Forensic News wrote a series of articles making various allegations against him. To date, the High Court in the UK has ruled in favor of Mr. Soriano’s request to serve libel claims against the defendants. This ruling was upheld by the Court of Appeal, which also granted Mr. Soriano permission to bring a data protection claim against Forensic News in what is considered to be a landmark decision on the territorial reach of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Shlomo Rechtschaffen, Mr. Soriano’s lawyer, said “the public apology of DeNault and Coleman, two co-authors who worked closely with Scott Stedman and Forensic News, is yet another in a long line of indicators that show the low quality of Mr. Stedman's journalistic work and integrity standards. It is also additional proof that Mr. Stedman is damaging Mr. Soriano with false allegations that have not been independently or professionally verified, and simply serves Mr. Stedman in his quest to taint the reputation of Mr. Soriano."

Shlomo Rechtschaffen
Shlomo Rechtschaffen
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