... (0 comments)[Please see update at bottom of the post.]
I found out that a 2003 Florida appeals court case decided that
Fox News has a First Amendment right to lie:A Florida Appeals court ruled there is absolutely nothing illegal about lying, concealing or distorting information by a major press organization. The court reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information. The ruling basically declares it is technically not against any law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast.It’s not like i disagree with the fundamental premise involved here. Fox Noise probably does have a First Amendment right to lie to its viewers. As a lawyer, it’s just interesting to imagine the oral arguments in the case. Here’s how my imagination frames it:
Judge: So, does Fox News lie in its coverage of the news?Man Droppings has some good thoughts on this:Fox News Lawyer: Well, of course, your honor, have you watched our network!? But seriously, it’s not as if there’s anything legally wrong with that!
[T]his cuts to the chase on the old, tired argument I get when I try to trash Faux News to true believers: ‘Oh, but all the news lies, it’s just a matter of their view.’Update: Article above edited to reflect the fact that this case was decided back in 2003. My apologies for mistakenly thinking this case came down more recently. To read more on the case, click here.Yes, it is true, in the simplest sense of true, that all news is by definition biased. There can be no truly objective news, because it is presented by humans, who have biases. However, this court ruling shows that Fox News, and Fox News alone, as far as I know, deliberately sets out to distort the truth as a matter of course.
And the fact that so many people not only buy into these lies, but actually seek out these lies because they are simple, and straightforward, and don’t challenge the consumer to think for himself–this is what spells our doom as a species. We prefer comfort, we prefer simplicity, and we shy away from challenges. We are soft, in body and in mind, and in my more pessimistic moods, I see Fox News as a stalking horse for a future in which we are ever dumber, and ever more controlled.
That may sound a bit apocalyptic, but you have to admit, we are getting dumber. And it is also demonstrable that dumb people are easier to control than smart people, those who ask questions. So does it make sense, therefore, that those who seek to control might wish to deliberately seek out ways to make and keep people dumber?
Or maybe that’s just dumb…
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This is so basic, it is hard to comment. The story basically says it all. Still, isn't it is a shame that this was not heard by the Federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. (Saying which, let's stop a moment and consider how bad the evidence must have been against Fox News for a Florida court, of all courts, to have entered a judgment against them.) Can we at least imagine a 9th Circuit mandate to Fox to change its motto from "Fair and Balanced" to "Telling You What You Want To Hear?" Fox News followers excuse the network by saying the other "liberal" networks are just the same -- except they are not. Already Liberal commentators, Bill Mahr and Jon Stewart among them, have been critical of President Obama for failing to live up to their ideals and his promises on certain issues. And I, as a liberal, am not even surprised at that, whereas everyone -- liberals and conservatives alike -- are shocked to the core when anyone at Fox walks even a step off the party line. Liberals, unlike Conservatives, don't believe our opinions are dictated by God, and therefore we are actually open to considering we might not always be right.
What is so different about this case… Nearly all of the Media have been fabricating news for a hundred years. The New York Times is an obvious example. Which probably explains why most of my college professors warned us to never belive anything we read… until we could first hand verify it our selves… and then to be sure we checked our own biases.
Larry
Gee and it's the "Fox News Republican Network" maybe Ann Coulter can be a news caster and lie about the moral right; or maybe it's the "republican rite to lie.
This is another good reason for us to check multiple news sources for news and information. It is important to recognize that, as the previous writer stated, that there is bias in the reports we hear. By checking a few other sites we are able to sift the truth from the bias.
checking multiple sources is useless when they all lie
I told you so…but then if you're just waking up to this, you're the last to know.
Yes, Bill Maher and Jon Stewart (apparently liberals either don't know how to spell or deliberately misspell the names of those who question The Chosen One) have taken President Obama to task, but you have conveniently left out Chris "My Leg Is Tingling" Matthews, Charlie "Can I Have Free Healthcare Too?" Gibson, Keith "Dick Cheney Is My Daddy" Olbermann, and Brian "Do You Mind If I Bow To You" Williams as examples of news commentators who are "in the bag" for the current administration. You may hate Fox News but without them, there would be virtually no major television outlet that would stop to question what is going on or present an alternative viewpoint. The tables have completely turned from when the Bush Administration was in power when every network BUT Fox was presenting an alternative viewpoint and bashing every move they made. None of you liberals cared whether anything that was being said was truthful or not — you just hated everything they were about and wanted them out. Please do not be a hypocrite and take Fox News to task when you have multiple networks all willing to do whatever it takes to get an agenda pushed through.
And one last thing…leave God out of this. The truth is the truth, whether you believe in a higher power or not.
you sir or madam apparantly didnt read the article. fox news was found to be lieing and twisting the truth.
this has nothing to do with with being conservative or liberal.
i personally want to hear news truthfully regardless of party affiliation.
i think a lot of people are losing their minds since Obama became president. God give us a brain we need to start using them. and quit being led by phony news.
so if i read you correctly, you thought it was shameful for fox news to be fact-free and insanely biased when they were pushing the Bush administration's agenda but now that they're staunchly opposed to the current administration, it's okay because they're at least questioning the administration? if i've ever seen a clearer case of the ends justifying the means, i can't remember it. oh wait, torture. but besides that…
As someone who would like to see an intelligent, saner, and resurgent conservatism in the U.S., let me just say: your left vs. right prism isn't helping, and Fox News isn't helping.
Robert hit the nail on the head. Start using your brain, and quit being misled by phony news--whether it happens to be a Fox or MSNBC.
Sure, Keith Olbermann is a Bill O'Reilly-esque partisan gasbag who only occasionally stumbles onto something worthy, but to its credit MSNBC has some intelligent commentators like Rachel Maddow. Matthews can also be interesting, he just gets too excited sometimes.
Fox News has…Shepard Smith? Andrew Napolitano? Not much to go on.
But I don't own a television, so take this with some salt. The web is more interesting.
Nice reply!
I would be glad to leave God out of it. In fact, I do, being a non-believer. Unfortunately, your side of the political spectrum is chock full of people who feel that if they decide they hate Gays, Blacks, (choose your group with a different lifestyle here), God literally has spoken to them about it. People who think they are divinely inspired in their opinions are, not surprisingly, unwilling to compromise, and compromise is the basis for the "polite" in politics.
That’s strange, because the “non-believers,” as you refer to yourself, are chock full of people who feel that if they go on mass murder sprees, they are “liberating” a mindset. They are also full of rapists too I might add… What color is your hair? Because I think a there are a lot of killers and rapists with your color hair as well…it must be about the hair color…
My point is, to generalize a group of people to generalize groups of people is to do the very thing you are judging a generalized group of people of doing. How a person acts and what they do is how that person acts and does as a person. You might as well say “All blacks hate all whites which is why I hate all blacks!” Or, “I hate you because you hate!”
Also, to judge someone for judging…again, hypocritical.
This type of rhetoric proves my point EVERY time…
So you are a believer ? I suggest you google this -- are religious people stupid ? It is a fact that most not all but most are really gulable and ignorant people. I mean really Noahs ark? adam and eve ? and the endless amout of hogwash and superstitions your bible says is truth. Also google this -- how many christian denominations are there ? You will be amazed !
Your god is supposed to be perfect and so makes no mistakes, yet we see children born with cancer and the endless amount of illnesses and suffering in our world. Millions of jews in death camps prayed for their lives, did their god hear them? Hell no he she it did not for they were praying to a non-existent being.
Religious people are a different breed, they believe all of us who call their nonsense out are just going to hell. Oh and their excuse for gods many mistakes is always ( god works in mysterious ) what a crock of crap.
I was watching the news (not fox) and I saw some people being interviewed after a hurricane had destroyed their home and most of the city. They were saying oh we just prayed to god and thats why we stayed alive.
I just about laughed, why? because your so called god made the hurricane, he was trying to kill you with it ! and he failed at that !
It is really amazing how anyone could sit through an hour of fox news and listen to the ignorant spew of BS, the right praises reagan but they dont tell you he raised taxed many times. the taxes on the rich are the lowest ever, where are these so called job creators? Oh the ignorance makes me ill I have little hope our country. huntsman was the smartest one and thats why he failed, republicans shun intelligence because they are jealous.
didn’t you hear? god only helps people win football games. he never sends hurricanes to kill people (unless pat robertson asks him nicely) :)
I don't understand how the court can rule that way. Libel and slander are still illegal, if fox is deliberately reporting false information about a person or organization on the news program, it's slander, on their website, it's libel. And defamation of character covers both. What could they be lying about that isn't covered by one of those? Last year's natural disaster didn't happen??
Fox is focused on slamming people, mostly moderates and liberals. All those lies are illegal. Could the court have said that pushing Akre wasn't illegal, and the ruling doesn't actually touch the veracity of the content??
Fox News and the Republicans do not have the right to lie. Ony the Democrares and the liberial media has that right. so there, eat it.
T.A. Davis, they all lie to a certain extent. However no one can beat a Republican for being extreamly bias about it. Like Fox Entertainment, I mean News labeling Mark Stanford as the Democratic Governor of South Carolina because he was admitting to abandoning his duties for a week to spend the time with is mistress in Latin America. Or Rush claiming that the governor was justified in his actions because everything is going to H___ any way so why not. While you have the right to you opinions but it seems that you have no clue why your party lost the election or why you are losing members daily.
Real simple people. The news should not lie, distort or misrepresent the truth. Period. Facts. Facts. Facts. The "faces" of the popular talk news are obviously expected to give their opinion, but those opinions should be of the straight truth, circumstances, events, etc. We the People then lean towards a "face" that "opines" to our own personal opinions.
Think about this: the news carriers are not upheld to truth (by a judge/court????!!!) so the lie, distortion, misrepresentation is presented…under the bias of the news carrier that only approves it's faces to present on their self serving platform…then the "face" who has ratings to keep themselves gets ahold of it and further lies, distorts and/or misrepresents the story according to his/her own personal bias and opinion. Sure perjury under oath. But fraud: deliberately misrepresenting oneself, truth, facts etc. for some type of gain.
Didn't Turner country club with some of the biggest names that built pipelines in Afghanistan? Doesn't Cheney have more than a little (a-hem, uh financial) interest in one of the largest oil companies in the world, Halliburton? So they are ALLOWED to lie to get some of us peons to agree to the innocent casualties of war? So they are ALLOWED to lie to us about whatever keeps causing such high oil prices? Do any of you REALLY believe the forefather authors of the Constitution intended #1 to allow deliberate self motivated lies? Actually, I learned in history that they wrote the Constitution, including the First Amendment because they were disgusted by and wanted to protect their new nation from THIS EXACT TYPE OF OPPRESSION!!!!
The tried and true weapon of the left is to accuse others of what the left is actually guilty of. It is straightforward and simple. The left excoriated the fiscally irresponsible "W" for running $500 billion annual deficits. The left wins the election, both houses of Congress and the Presidency, and the first budget out of the shoot explodes the deficit to $1.75 trillion (3.5 times bigger than "Dubya's"). When anyone who leans left complains about deceit or lies, what they are really doing is confessing their own bad behaviour. Listen in detail to what the left is complaining about, and you will know what they are currently up to. The right has a major competency void. The left is where the truth-challenged reside.
Oh my David, you have given me so much to work with that I do not really know were to start. In your first statement that the tried true weapon of the left… was it the left that labeled Mark Stafford a Democrat on their news program? Was it the left that spent the entire government surplus? Was it the left who mismanaged a three trillion dollar oil war? Was it the left who removed regulations regulating the banking industry and leading to one of the worst economical meltdowns in history? Is it left that is trying to morally justify the use of torture? Is it the left that seems to have political leaders coming out at least one a week, and sometimes twice a week, with infidelities? Until the GOP can admit that it made mistakes, what the mistakes are, and move to correct the mistake it will continue to sink to a regional party.
The left excoriated the fiscally irresponsible "W" for running $500 billion annual deficits. The left wins the election, both houses of Congress and the Presidency, and the first budget out of the shoot explodes the deficit to $1.75 trillion (3.5 times bigger than "Dubya's").
What a bunch of bogus information and numbers. Only once did a bill override Bush's veto. Bush approved of everything else that passed. Oh, and most Democrats in Congress aren't from the Center.
David. Go to the Office of Budget Management and find out how much Dubya went through. It's quite a bit more than $500 billion. Obviously you got your figure from Fox News.
Everyone should be held accountable. This isn't an us and them issue.
First, Man Droppings pleads for an unbiased truthful reporting of the news, then he says "Fox News, and Fox News alone, as far as I know, set out to distort the truth as a matter of course".
This is a case a reporter brought to the courts against her employer. I would really be interested in seeing the findings of the court that states Fox News is the only news agency that lies. Was Fox the only news agency sued and these charges brought against? Yes. But did the courts weigh data to decide that all other news agencies tell the truth and Fox News lies? Of course not. Why would Droppings include that little phrase in his comments if he himself wasn't bias and pushing an agenda?
I say shame on Fox and pat the reporter on the back and say job well done. The real story should be how brave this reporter was to bring the lawsuit in the first place.
Man Droppings is bashing Fox but doing the exact same thing that he is claiming Fox is guilty of. Which is, taking the facts given and shaping them in the context of which point of view he wishes to sell.
Can any one honestly state that they believe all News outlets do not distort or omit facts to better serve their story and or agenda?
What makes this article even worse is that the court case referenced here was decided by the court over 6 years ago -- on 2/14/03. Yet this article is datelined 6/29/09. 1 lie + 1 lie does not add up to the truth.
I went back and looked at the article on the case and it was indeed decided back in 2003. I have corrected the post above to reflect this.
And you over look… Bill Clinton lied under oath … committing sworn perjury…. beyond all that… All the press has lied to us all for more than a hundred years… believe nothing you hear or read until you can first hand verify it yourself… then check your own biases
If there are doubts about any of the media lying to us….This article is dated 6/29/2009. The court case referenced was decided on February 14, 2003. So the indication that this is current news is a lie. I would be much happier with differing versions of the truth than different versions of a lie.____
First amendment right to lie but what about MORALITY? Has the Republi-CONartist Faux News decided that lying is okay for them but NOT for the Democrats? (of course they have!)
What happened to JOURNALISM? Journalism is all about telling the truth based on FACTS, not biased opinion and innuendo. Journalism is not to be used as a tool to feed the 'minds' of the idiots that watch Faux News…….they have a MORAL OBLIGATION to check FACTS and report FACTS to the public and let the PUBLIC decide what their opinion is.
This is why the Republi-conartists are watching their own party implode. A house of cards cemented with lies will always crumble. Bummer, sure would hate to see the Republi-conartists fail……..oh ya, they already have! Can't you hear them whine?
I'm with GarynPS! What happened six years ago is being used to tarnish the image of a respectable News Agency. We don't even know, from the info presented here, if this was an Agency Lie, or a personal lie by someone within the agency. We do know that Obama complained about FOX, and now there's an attempt to give them credibility issues. Hmmmmm
Do you have another source other than another Left Wing Blog? I seem to smell a slanted story which has some parts completely made up…like the Lawyers quote…I smell bullshit. I run a Conservative Blog and I always provide sources, but I never use another blog as a "source", I always dig deeper and maybe you should as well. I am still digging, but other than Left Wing blogs and hate Fox News sites, I have yet to find an article from a creditable news source. You also fail to point out that the entire story revolves around Milk…yes Milk! Would love it if you could actually find your quote on an actual news site and send me the link.
I went back and looked at the article on the case and it was indeed decided back in 2003. I have corrected the post above to reflect this. I posted a link to an article that discussed the case back in 2004 if you want to take a look. As for the lawyer's "quote" above, that was meant as snark — I added a lead-in to make this clearer to the folks that didn't get it the first time.
The link for the original article is not functioning properly, however, thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my comment and the actions you took. We may well not agree politically, but I always appreciate honest debate and honest actions. I would encourage you to come over to my blog sometime and feel free to give some input, because an unchallenged point view is one that does not require thought and I consider myself a thinker.
thanks. i do love engaging with people who prove to be open to rational discussion and frank and honest debate. i will definitely come by and check out your blog.
So who has a right to lie about lies?
All news organization have a tendency to lie, their job is to sell papers, air time, or online hits. The term yellow journalism is not a new term but dates back from the 1800’s. The problem is that Fox News approaches news entertainment with the same relish that the National Enquirer does, and with the same results. I watch the local Fox News because they do a good job, but I watch PBS and balance it with the BBC for my national and international news. However sensationalism sells and Fox does its best to make sure that it has the most sensationalist news on the air, and the truth has very little to do with it.
News reporting today is not reporting, it is sensationalizing a topic. I do not care to hear what anyones oponion on a subject is. News as I veiw it and as I was taught it in school is the 5 W's and an H.
WHO
WHAT
WHEN
WHERE
WHY
HOW
Give me that and let me form my own oponions.
How and why did you dig up this stupid story? Did you just google negative Fox information? You know, you didn't have to google at all! To make it simpler for you just watch MSNBC any day and you can find twisting of the truth and lies. There, problem solve!
What difference does it make how he found it? Sound as though someone is bitter about his sacred source being discredited!
That would be nice but nothing scares the corporate run news and political parties than a self aware independent thinking populace, after all they might vote their convictions.
The sad fact of human nature is that, a lot of the time, being confronted with the fact that we’re being lied to makes us EVEN MORE LIKELY to believe the lie. Most common solution: the generation that believes the lie so deeply dies off, and then we can move on.
Nice post, Metavirus, and timely as ever!
[...] up like weeds through the whole of America, and Fox News broke ground on its operations in 1996, unshackled by any necessity to tell the truth. They are legally allowed to lie, and there is no legal recourse against [...]
You are so right, It is amazing how they are allowed to lie as they do. I would like to say somthing else about lieing on television, its the many phony medications that all of our television channels allow.
Everyday I see crap like meds to increase your testoserone levels which is not possible unless you take real testosterone. Then there are the many weight loss meds which are all fake. Its relavent to selling snake oil in the 1800s, I just hate to see stupid people being taken advantage of and wasting their money.
Its about time fox or any other news media be held responsible for twisting the truth or telling outright lies. And also anything advertised should have to be first proven to work. thankyou !
JUST TURN OFF FOX BAD NEWS FOR AMERICA JUST SAY NO TO FOX NEWS
You say just turn it off ? well you have a good point its like religious folk complaining about sex on TV and we say just dont look at it.
My experience with fox was short lived, I never watched the news much when I was younger, a few years ago I started watching it and just happen to turn on fox news. It took me a few weeks to figure it out for myself, I would say what ? thats just wrong, soon I turned to CNN and found they dont outright lie.
I also like msnbc rachael ed and chris and especially O’donnel . sorr for the poor spelling.
[...] Court of Appeals said that, specifically, Fox News (and by extension all news organizations) has a first amendment right to lie. Yup, that bastion of “fair and balanced” actually fought a case to appeals court [...]