Would you debate on a station that DEFENDS their RIGHT TO LIE ?

Question

The Right to Lie in the "News"
If ever we needed to know why the biggest media consumers in the world are so badly informed, this pretty well tells it all. The Media Can Legally Lie.
According to Akre and Wilson, the station was initially very excited about the series. But within a week, Fox executives and their attorneys wanted the reporters to use statements from Monsanto representatives that the reporters knew were false and to make other revisions to the story that were in direct conflict with the facts.
Fox editors then tried to force Akre and Wilson to continue to produce the distorted story. When they refused and threatened to report Fox's actions to the FCC, they were both fired.
Akre and Wilson sued the Fox station and on August 18, 2000, a Florida jury unanimously decided that Akre was wrongfully fired by Fox Television when she refused to broadcast (in the jury's words) “a false, distorted or slanted story” about the widespread use of BGH in dairy cows.
[...] FOX appealed the case, and on February 14, 2003 the Florida Second District Court of Appeals unanimously overturned the settlement awarded to Akre. The Court held that Akre’s threat to report the station’s actions to the FCC did not deserve protection under Florida’s whistle blower statute, because Florida’s whistle blower law states that an employer must violate an adopted “law, rule, or regulation."
In a stunningly narrow interpretation of FCC rules, the Florida Appeals court claimed that the FCC policy against falsification of the news does not rise to the level of a "law, rule, or regulation," it was simply a "policy." Therefore, it is up to the station whether or not it wants to report honestly.
During their appeal, FOX asserted that there are no written rules against distorting news in the media. They argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves.
Fox attorneys did not dispute Akre’s claim that they pressured her to broadcast a false story, they simply maintained that it was their right to do so.
OK, pick your jaw up off the floor. That some court thinks they CAN is bad enough, that these people assert their right to do so pretty well kicks it all down the hole. And these guys wonder why their credibility is in the toilet and the net is burning them left right and centre.
Oh, and February 2003, 30 days before Iraq.

Answer 1

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

You seem to forget how CBS defended their fake memo.

You post is getting old.

Answer 2

I don't believe that there should be regulations on what stations can and cannot say. It set a dangerous precedent to allow anyone to infringe 1st amendment rights. Happily for pundits, lying is a first amendment right.
The fault here, my friend, is in the government's lack of interest in education. The fact is that if the population were better educated it would have been more difficult for the corporations to have taken over the News media without a fight. I don;t think it is too late to raise hell. The suits should be held accountable for having cowed the US pop. into TV zombyism.
On the other hand, the fact that Monsanto is still operating demonstrates the failure of other governmental agencies to put a stop to incorporated criminal organizations. The USDA should have cracked down a company that puts PUS into our milk before they even got started.
Now, we have the internet. I am not aware of how far reaching this site is, how reverberating blogging can be and finally whether it will make a difference outside of the virtual world.
Yet, if we let everyone know how meager the benefits of white North America are, how high the costs are for the world's poor and the obscene extent to which the top 1% enrich themselves on OUR loss, i believe that at least people will be pissed off and stop watching the idiot tube.
The choices are already out there. I think DemocracyNow! is a beacon of responsible journalism; scratch that, they are frontiersmen of the new humanism. Somebody in another post called them biased and i retorted that they had all the right biases. They are biased against the corporate machine and for individual liberties and collective welfare. They criticize everyone who endangers basic human rights and praise those who work for peace.
DN! is available online at Democracynow.org . Yesterday's show contains a heart wrenching (although encouraging) interview with Cindy Sheehan.
The only way we can defend truth is by looking for MANY alternative sources of information. Not by regulating the government but by encouraging the better aspects of the free market.
That said, who are those trolls defending FOX? as if the fact that other US networks are just as bad somehow ameliorated the poison that comes out of the Minitruth tube. Unless they are paid 'ghost writers', this people must be delusional. As i said, corporate television makes you into a zombie.

Answer 3

Well there's the big news story. The truth is not the law.

The media has always lied. It is not necesarily in their interests to tell the truth. It is in their interests to make money. That is why American news is the most dumbed down news on the face of the planet, in Britain you regularly get stories from all around the world - round about half. Many news stations closely cover elections in western nations (such as Germany and more recently France) - you'd be lucky to get one single news story on Fox or CNN that isn't about the US.

The media is controlled by money - not standards or even truth. Lies, sorry - spin about a subject is standard, especially if it's politicised.

Answer 4

Such a decision is unthinkable in a civilized society. The ideational basis of a marketplace of lives engaged in by trained individuals, responsible individuals agreeing to and refusing partnerships of limited varieties with one another is the notion of stated and implied intent.

In other words, the content of a contract spells out what the signatories to that contract--implied or explicit--had in their minds at the time. The licensing of "news"--non-fiction disseminating licensee activity by humans--is not exempt from this scientific rule at all. No one needs more regulating than does a government-licensed disseminator of what is supposed to be non-fiction.

To argue that such a corporation's officers can disseminate something else under the false title of "information,
news, non-fiction" strikes at the foundations of human marketplaces, agreements, contracts, and lives.

It is fraud, pure and simple; leading to coercion and direct use of force. Here Fox News used the right-wing venue of a court friendly to its sort of unAmerican arguments to overturn a clear case of fraud by the network's executives, victimizing the professionals and public alike. And then this enlisted their force, in addition to the coercion by which Fox tried to get their broadcasters NOT to do their job under FCC regulations.

Sorry, but this case is blatant censorship and much worse.
It belongs on the front page of every news paper, the screen of every media outlet in the world. Not only by this example are Fox's non-fictional information officers committing crimes, they are being abetted in these actions against individuals who formerly had rights in this country by a court system that formerly secured those rights to citizens, not securing the privilege of lying, distorting and discriminating against honest citizens to those preying upon them.

Answer 5

This shocked when I first read it some time ago. What shocks me now is that US citizens not only accept but expect lies and propaganda in their media. If you read the latest Reporters without Borders Freedom of the Press ranking, you'll see we are far from the "free" country most Americans seem to think. And right above Iran in the Peace index, but Yemen managed to beat the US. And few care at all.

Answer 6

I would, but then again, I am not running for president.

I already have a personal boycott of Fox News, I haven't watched them in years for the same reason, they LIE.

I can't say I fault the dems for the boycott, Fox News runs story after story demonizing the democratic candidates,(all the while singing praises of Giuliani and McCain) then expects them to show up and do interviews with them? ridiculous. Fox News has no one to blame but themselves.

Answer 7

Gore met along with his spouse's cousin for a communicate on the subject of arrangements for a kinfolk day trip on the flicks to visual demonstrate unit the action picture "Hancock" (this is marvelous). for the period of that talk his spouse's cousin had a humorous-looking tie which caught Gore's interest. Gore then made a remark with regard to the tie which resulted in them speaking approximately "tie" debates. a third source then spoke with regard to the Harlem Globe Trotters as she sipped some wine. the guy in the back of this woman overheard and steadfastly refused to decrease back faraway from her imaginative and prescient that the "Globe" trotters have been probably marvelous debaters too. Gore then grew to alter into inspired and day after as we communicate reported the international warming debate exchange into over. After, he took a snooze b/c day after as we communicate he exchange into to make an visual allure at some commencement.

Answer 8

Doesn't surprise me. FOX has lied its way to success, it wouldn't have got there without stern approval from the justice system.

Answer 9

Fox Noise is a joke. Do yourself a favor and avoid it. It'll make you feel cheap and abused.

Answer 10

Like Howard Dean said, the dems have no need to go promote on propoganda stations....

Answer 11

Last time I looked, using your criteria, we also have to not watch debates on CBS, NBC etc. Basically all of them have been caught "lying" at one time or another. I have yet to see FOX totally fake exploding trucks to make a story (NBC did).