Answer: They DON'T!
It seems from a flurry of fabricated stories about Barbra Streisand in the conservative New York Post that this publication feels that freedom of the press only applies to those who own the presses. This concerns the latest in a series of defamations.

THE LIES:

On the final day of election campaigning (Nov. 4, 2002) The New York Post created one more viciously false story to try to malign Barbra Streisand's support of Democratic candidates and Democratic issues. Richard Johnson, in his Page Six column, headlined a ludicrous concoction that must have defied even his credulity-or, certainly, that of his readers. The story asserted that Barbra Streisand had advanced a "paranoid conspiracy theory" in respect to the tragic air crash that took the lives of Paul Wellstone and seven others. Nothing could be further from the truth, but Johnson went on to offer the similarly ridiculous lie that Ms. Streisand had presented this idea in a letter to "an audience of interior designers bidding on a chance to decorate" her new addition. Page Six further asserts that she told them they had to concur with her political beliefs.

THE TRUTH:

Ms. Streisand never advanced "a paranoid conspiracy theory" in any letter (there is none) to 5 candidates bidding for a job to decorate her home since she is her own decorator. The Page Six story was yet another Post article attempting to discredit this vocal Democrat with baseless charges.

Now, let's consider the amazing irony of the November 4 story in which the New York Post identified House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt as "SEN. Dick Gephardt"... it established a new context for the Post's repeated castigations of Ms. Streisand for a misspelling of Gephardt's name (this was in a memo DICTATED BUT NOT READ BY HER). Presumably it was Mr. Johnson or one of his two credited co-writers who wrote "Sen. Dick Gephardt." It was published, unchallenged, after inspection by highly paid and knowledgeable New York Post editors. It is significant only because Mr. Johnson holds others, very belligerently, to standards with which he himself cannot comply.

Of course he erred. Why? Not because he is stupid, but because he is human. It is why even so prestigious a paper as The New York Times has a corrections column every day.

But while inadvertent errors are human and should be accepted as such and not ridiculed, the writers of calculated falsehoods designed to detract from intended content and aimed only to shame and defame people, should accept their responsibility and be held accountable.