In Widener v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (1977) 75 Cal.App.3d 415, which reversed a trial court granting of judgment NOV, the Court of Appeal pointed out that there had been no effort by Pacific Gas and Electric to check the veracity of the charge that their engineer, by letter, leveled at plaintiff that plaintiff had dubbed into a video interview a statement made elsewhere. The court pointed out that the Pacific Gas and Electric executives who participated in the drafting of the letter ". . . had cause seriously to question the veracity of their sole source, Carroll . . . . None of them (nor Carroll) had viewed the film, in which Carroll's words are clearly synchronized with his lip movements and he appears to be looking directly at the camera . . . . None of them checked into the technical feasibility of the charged tampering . . . none of them questioned Carroll about the charge . . . ." (Id., at p. 435.) In Widener, there was no "hot news" pressure on the publisher, for several months had gone by before the libelous publication was made. The court recognized that where the defamatory statement published does not involve an issue of "hot news" and the need for expeditious release is not present, the element of malice in the form of reckless disregard of whether the statement is true or not may be evidenced in part by failure to investigate thoroughly to verify the facts.