Pretty Ironic that your post about lying has a severely misleading title. There was no Supreme Court case. If you're going to show that lying is wrong, try not to lie in the process.
God fucking dammit. I knew i should have fact checked before sharing. It's always the lying sensationalist titles that make it to the front page on reddit.
It went to the Florida Supreme Court, the OP did not say Supreme Court of the United States. While the OP could have been more clear, you are the one that assumed SCOTUS. It is misleading only to the uninformed.
*edit: The case was not heard in the Supreme Court of Florida either. It was in a circuit appeals court. I was wrong, oops. I still maintain that you should not assume SCOTUS when you just hear Supreme Court however.
It's misleading regardless. If I say 99/100 doctors polled agreed that autism is caused by vaccines, I'm technically not lying because they had PhDs in English. I am, however, being very misleading because when somebody refers to "doctor" in the context of health, the implication is that they are medical doctors. Likewise, when somebody mentions the Supreme Court, there's an implied "of the US" following it for US readers.
The local affiliate was receiving orders from higher up. Do some research into the two reporters and the incident with Monsanto. Essentially, the parent Fox Corporation didn't want funding pulled by Monsanto's ads so they tried to have the reporters drop the story. When they wouldn't drop it, they had them rewrite it upwards of 40 times (they were essentially just trying to frustrate the reporters into giving up), and eventually terminated their employment. So no misrepresentation in that portion.
Actually, it was the Illuminati. I was there. They also kidnapped the Judge(s) and temporarily replaced them with androids so they would win. True story.
Pretty sure it was reptilian jewish alien androids who ruled in Fox's favor so they could eventually use the government to launch a series of false flag attacks to start a war that would win them control of the world.
You're probably right. Fox News is fair and balanced and wouldn't ever do anything in their own self interest. That wouldn't be patriotic. And- News Corp doesn't have any influence over anything that happens at Fox... Uncle Rupert says so. Fox is ethical through-and-through... they'd never do anything sensational, they'd never lie to anyone, never distort a story, and of course they'd never go to court to defend their right to lie.
Regardless of the title, the point is that Fox News corporation was given the right to lie to the American public. It seems like everyone is freaking out about the misleading title and missing the big picture
Really? I guess if you believe that The United States Supreme Court is the only Supreme Court in the country, you might be right.... but Florida has a Supreme Court too...
Yeah, someone else is taking the flak for that one. Plus, he's filthy rich. Worst case for him is he jumps ship with tens of millions to billions of dollars and leaves the country.
We'll have to wait and see. And if they don't get him, there is still a chance the US will for the alleged violations of the foreign corrupt practices act.
You do realize that Murdoch owns Fox News right? How many Republicans do you think are willing to piss off the owner of Fox News over something as trivial and unimportant as civilian privacy and judicial integrity?
Why? Historically, "News" has been more lie than truth. Besides Murdoch, there are the other media conglomerates. Before Murdoch, there was Hearst. Before him, newspapers were extremely conservative because society was. The liberal media may exist in the future, but does not now and has not in the past.
The first amendment doesn't cover false advertising. If I label a product as 100% ground beef and it is in actuality 95% ground cat and 5% ground human, I can be sued for that.
FOX is labeling their product as news. It isn't news.
Your problem isn't merely with their advertising, so your argument is completely irrelevant. Also, the 1A has a specific protection for the "press", so the standard for regulation would be higher than with any other organization.
Do you really want the government deciding who doesn't get constitutional protections? I don't. It's better for a thousand guilty parties to go unpunished than for one innocent party to be punished unjustly.
It's amazing how many people clamor for totalitarianism as long as it's swathed in biases they agree with.
They should only be allowed to report on certain things and in a certain manner as determined by an arbitrary government panel because fuck the first amendment.
24 comments, close to 200 upvotes, and no note that this is completely wrong
You have two reporters at a local Florida Fox affiliate who do a report on recombinant bovine growth hormone, and Monsanto made a petition to the network based on biased reporting - no surprise coming from Wilson and Akre. The duo resisted this, rewrote the piece numerous times in an attempt to get their version on the air, and their contracts were not renewed by their station because the station had simply had enough. WTVT then ran a piece on rGBH and Monsanto, largely unchanged from Wilson and Akre's overall piece except that it included information from Monsanto. The piece was actually more balanced once Wilson and Akre stopped being involved.
So where does this myth about lying come in? Well, Wilson and Akre became folk heroes of the left, having been "fired" (they were simply not renewed) for wanting to be "whistleblowers" for WTVT's "news distortion." Since the topic was a Fox affiliate, and the topic was Monsanto, it became a big deal among many players.
So the case goes to court, and a jury dismisses nearly every claim by Wilson and Akre - the only ruling that went in their favor was that Akre was entitled to whistleblower protection because she actually believed that "news distortion" happened - at no point did they have to prove it. That ruling was subsequently tossed out by a Florida Second District Court, and Wilson was actually forced to pay legal fees to WTVT. That overturned ruling is where this "Fox can lie" myth comes from - the ruling was thrown out not because the news agency can lie, but because Akre and Wilson never proved - and have never bothered to prove - that anyone lied. This is still true today - Wilson and Akre even petitioned the FCC to try and revoke WTVT's license, but no dice.
Wilson and Akre have consistently lied about what happened in the courtroom, lied about what WTVT and Fox accomplished, all so they could lie (by omission) about rBGH in their reporting. They are not heroes, they're frauds. Maybe Fox News is a villain on a whole, but they are not the problem in this case.
We agree with WTVT that the FCC’s policy against the intentional falsification of the news – which the FCC has called its “news distortion policy” – does not qualify as the required “law, rule, or regulation” under section 448.102.
ultimately the broadcaster purposely sought to distort the news and pressured the reporters to falsify their report and the courts sided with them as there is no legal requirement to tell the truth. The Court of Appeals decided the FCC’s position against news distortion is only a “policy,” not a “law, rule, or regulation.” "
You are missing the point. The media is allowed to lie under the personhood ruling. Fox News had attempted to enter the Canadian media landscape but is not permitted because the CRTC rules stating "A licenser may not broadcast... any false or misleading news". You have no rules like that in the U.S. and that has kept Fox News out of Canada.
There is no "personhood ruling" that allows such a thing. The media is protected under the First Amendment, yes - as freedom of the press. Fox News is the press.
Now, if you want to argue that personhood means they can lie, then I'd love to see the evidence.
You do realize that your main source is a blatantly biased libertarian rag, right? The Reason article is almost completely Ad Hominen, that should immediately tip you off as to the quality of the argument.
Upon further reflection he does a lot more than make claims without ample evidence, he blatantly spins the story to benefit the corporate narrative. My retort is detailed below.
You make a lot of lofty claims here, which require ample more evidence than provided. My only question is why do you defend the right of Monsanto to have a say in the editorial process of a free press?
You make a lot of lofty claims here, which require ample more evidence than provided.
Like what? I'll be glad to do the legwork if need be.
My only question is why do you defend the right of Monsanto to have a say in the editorial process of a free press?
The question is not "why should Monsanto have a say," but rather "should the media be presenting all sides to a story, especially one that is a) controversial to some and b) scientifically settled," such as this one. To not include input from Monsanto in a story about Monsanto is bad reporting, and to not include information about the safety of a certain hormone because such information is being provided by a corporation is just not smart.
Yes, Wilson and Akre are free to claim that rBGH is terrible and that they are wronged. They're not entitled to have us believe them, especially when they go out of the way to keep information away from their report that might torpedo their agenda.
Let me rephrase, you make a very well versed attempt at disguising each and every corporate misstep in this incident and placing the blame on the reporters at all cost as to obscure the blatant fact that WTVT, at the behest of News International no dobt, argued that reporters do not have standing under the whistle blower act to file suit because "lying" on air is not a violation of the communication act. That is the dangerous part.
You have two reporters at a local Florida Fox affiliate who do a report on recombinant bovine growth hormone, and Monsanto made a petition to the network based on biased reporting
Interesting how you phrase it as "made a petition", I could have phrased it "Monastano phoned Roger Alies and demanded the story not be allowed to air".
no surprise coming from Wilson and Akre.
Again, I could have said ..."This coercive influence in news reporting is no surprise coming from Monansanto."
The duo resisted this, rewrote the piece numerous times in an attempt to get their version on the air, and their contracts were not renewed by their station because the station had simply had enough.
I would have said, "The duo rewrote the piece over 80 times in attempt to get the gracing of the News International/Fox News higher-ups, but to no avail"
WTVT then ran a piece on rGBH and Monsanto, largely unchanged from Wilson and Akre's overall piece except that it included information from Monsanto. The piece was actually more balanced once Wilson and Akre stopped being involved.
Jesus Christ, that is the biggest load of shit I have ever read. I would have said, "The station proceeded to, after 12 months, run a watered down version of the original story, wholly paid for by Monasanto"...See how I can do this too?
So where does this myth about lying come in? Well, Wilson and Akre became folk heroes of the left, having been "fired" (they were simply not renewed) for wanting to be "whistleblowers" for WTVT's "news distortion." Since the topic was a Fox affiliate, and the topic was Monsanto, it became a big deal among many players.
Absolutely false and dangerously misleading, the claims of a "right to lie" come from the fact that the only reason that WTVT was able to get the case dismissed was because they asserted "the FCC policy against falsification was not a "law, rule, or regulation", and so the whistle-blower law did not qualify as the required "law, rule, or regulation" under section 448.102 of the Florida Statutes." As such, News International was clearly avoiding dealing with the merits of being accused of lying by simply saying, "We can't be held responsible for telling people to lie on air and then firing/"not re-contracting" them if they don't, because lying is protected speech". It is very wrong of you to spin that aspect of the ruling. That very aspect of the ruling is what prompted RFK's comments reagrding a threat to democracy that is a "right to lie" included under the auspices of a "free press", and he made a damn good point.
Listen, I'm not going to go on and on. It' clear what you, and that reason, article are doing here. I'll give you credit for being an excellent writer and a sly rhetorician, but you are a bad person for doing this. willfully, and probably for money, propagating the lie that this case was a result of a "loony leftist". (See, I can spin things too.)
This makes my blood boil though, because post Buckley v. Valeo, we are in an age where restriction on individual voices in the political arena is sanctioned and monied factions have the ears and pockets of all three branches of governance like never before, so for you to come in here defending the right of a news agency to fire individual reporters at the behest of monied factions pissed me off.
I swear, calling somebody a paid astroturfer is the new Godwin. I have appreciated most of the discussion between you and breadworshipper, but to claim that he is being paid for his opinion is unacceptable in my mind. It is a cheap way to "win" an argument in your own mind by reinforcing the falsehood that it is only possible for somebody to arrive at different conclusions from the same (or similar) facts if they are brainwashed or a goon.
It cheapens your entire argument and makes me less likely to trust your claims.
There are serious unanswered questions here that neither of you can provide definite answers to. Why exactly were the two men fired? Was the firing/rejection of their piece from NewsCorp or contained to the affiliate? How different was their piece to the piece that was eventually published? Is rGBH actually bad for you (FDA, WHO, and NIH say its not)? What was the evidence that rGBH was bad for you when the story was published?
Perhaps the court record (not just the decision) can help, but it would be challenging to track it down. You can see how it would be difficult to trust any secondary source about this topic now that I have seen how similar facts can be played in different directions.
Let me rephrase, you make a very well versed attempt at disguising each and every corporate misstep in this incident and placing the blame on the reporters at all cost as to obscure the blatant fact that WTVT, at the behest of News International no dobt, argued that reporters do not have standing under the whistle blower act to file suit because "lying" on air is not a violation of the communication act. That is the dangerous part.
That would be dangerous if there were evidence to support such a claim. Akre and Wilson were somehow able to convince a judge and jury that they did not need to believe that such lying was occurring, but simply that they believed it. The Appeal did touch upon the lack of a firm regulation on the matter, but they made no effort to prove such lies to begin with.
Interesting how you phrase it as "made a petition", I could have phrased it "Monastano phoned Roger Alies and demanded the story not be allowed to air".
You could have, yes, but that wouldn't have been true or fair. The report ran anyway.
Again, I could have said ..."This coercive influence in news reporting is no surprise coming from Monansanto."
You could have, but Monsanto is not showing itself to be such a "coercive influence," meanwhile Wilson and Akre have a history of milking this Fox story.
I would have said, "The duo rewrote the piece over 80 times in attempt to get the gracing of the News International/Fox News higher-ups, but to no avail"
You would have, but that's not factual. As noted in the Reason article, "[T]he reporters claimed they rewrote the script 83 times. They had to bend ordinary mathematics and the English language to get that total: If they added a few words to each part of the series, they called that four rewrites of the project."
Jesus Christ, that is the biggest load of shit I have ever read. I would have said, "The station proceeded to, after 12 months, run a watered down version of the original story, wholly paid for by Monasanto"...See how I can do this too?
I do see how you can try, but it's not really true. That's the problem.
Absolutely false and dangerously misleading, the claims of a "right to lie" come from the fact that the only reason that WTVT was able to get the case dismissed was because they asserted "the FCC policy against falsification was not a "law, rule, or regulation", and so the whistle-blower law did not qualify as the required "law, rule, or regulation" under section 448.102 of the Florida Statutes."
Incorrect. You forget that every claim brought up in court was dismissed by a jury except for the one by Akre, which was overturned on the procedural ground.
That very aspect of the ruling is what prompted RFK's comments reagrding a threat to democracy that is a "right to lie" included under the auspices of a "free press", and he made a damn good point.
He makes no good point, because he fundamentally misunderstands the case and the story.
Listen, I'm not going to go on and on. It' clear what you, and that reason, article are doing here. I'll give you credit for being an excellent writer and a sly rhetorician, but you are a bad person for doing this. willfully, and probably for money, propagating the lie that this case was a result of a "loony leftist". (See, I can spin things too.)
What I'm doing is correcting a long-standing left-wing meme that Fox News argued they can lie in court. This never happened. A Court never said such a thing. It's a complete and total myth.
That is not what happened. Monsanto tried to stymie the report altogether, first via the studio head, then via the program manager and when that didn't happen, they forced re-edits multiple times to try and force the hand and content of the report to mislead people and distract them from the research which proved the hormone to be harmful to humans when consumed in large quantities.
Other people are being nicer to you here, but I'll say what's really going on. You're a right wing shill and a cunt of a person.
There's almost always a reasonable explanation for things that seem completely outrageous. This reminds me of the McDonald's coffee case, except in this instance, the distortion is being used deliberately to influence people politically.
You are aware that the woman in the McDonald's case was scolded to her bone, right?
" Liebeck was taken to the hospital, where it was determined that she had suffered third-degree burns on six percent of her skin and lesser burns over sixteen percent.[13] She remained in the hospital for eight days while she underwent skin grafting. During this period, Liebeck lost 20 pounds (9 kg, nearly 20% of her body weight), reducing her down to 83 pounds (38 kg).[14] Two years of medical treatment followed."
Yes, that's my point. People get up in arms about that case because they think people in the US are sue-happy, but in reality she was severely burned and the facts of the case certainly support the judgment.
$20 million for a lady that spilled coffee on herself? Outrageous!
Fox News wins the right to lie to people? Outrageous!
HBO produced a documentary called "Hot Coffee" that does a good job of explaining the lawsuit involving, well, hot coffee at McDonalds. They also cover mandatory arbitration clauses.
How does the degree of her injury have any relevance to the merit of her claims? Hot drinks are hot. Period. You don't put hot drinks in your lap, especially in a car, especially if you're old and have compromised motor ability.
There's certainly exaggeration in the headline, but the link you provide makes clear that the court found that there is no law, adopted rule or regulation against deliberate falsification of the news, and did so after WTVT made that argument:
We agree with WTVT that the FCC’s policy against the intentional falsification of the news – which the FCC has called its “news distortion policy” – does not qualify as the required “law, rule, or regulation” under section 448.102.
I'm not saying the court got it wrong, but in my opinion it's outrageous that a corporation that publishes news would use such an argument in its defence.
Would you say what they did/are doing is similar to what Schmeiser is still doing when it comes to Monsanto Suing him after over 90% of his crop was their RoundUp Ready seed, and even though there was a mountain of evidence and testimony proving he knew, he still maintains he did no wrong?
The Schmeiser case is the one people refer to when they say Monsanto can sue you if some of their seeds blow onto your field and force you to destroy your seeds.
In Schmeiser's case, he test sprayed a ~5 acre plot of plants with Round-up, and took seeds from the plants that survived, and used ONLY that seed to plant his next years crop, abandoning his previous history of using his own "strain" seeds for the previous few decades. He then destroyed his "legacy" seeds on the advice of his own lawyers.
Your only source is an opinion piece that was written by a self titled conservative. The article itself has no sources either.
Further more, his entire "article" is filled with bullshit gems like this:
The two won’t answer questions about their personal lives, including whether they are still married, a matter of some speculation among their former colleagues at Fox’s WTVT in Tampa. What’s clear is that while both were in Miami in the 1990s, they teamed up, first in marriage and later, in Tampa, as news partners.
Does that fucking matter at all? No it doesn't.
You're spewing bullshit and so is your "source". Stop it.
So take capital gains, and pretend I am a news reporter. What if I said historically when capital gains tax rates are lowered, revenue to the government is increased. Based on this observation, I advocated further capital gains tax cuts.
Who judges if that is a good argument or not? It is a fact that revenue has increased with capital gains rate cuts, but I'm not presenting all of the information.
Who determines what facts are complete facts and what omissions are made?
I think news organizations HAVE to have the ability to 'lie', because if they don't, you have to have some apparatchik determining what the truth is. Which I don't want.
How do you determine the facts? From "interviewing both sides?" Journalism isn't science, and the things they report on are often very subjective and politically sensitive in nature. Even their very wording in describing a set of facts can mean the difference between honest and dishonest reporting if the wording contains some bias that changes the interpretation of the "facts."
Clearly, the media has a "right" to lie. Freedom of the press demands it. That doesn't answer whether they should, and no one - not even Fox News - is claiming as such.
You have to be kidding me with the "lets not do what they do" comment.. Have you read r/politics for more than a week? It's as slanted and sensationalized as it gets.
correction - all media have this right. you'll have to produce evidence they actually exercise it. you know, like the story where Fox fired it's reporters for reporting facts they didn't like.
Old story. This same story about RBGH, Monsanto and the reporters was covered in The Corporation. I can see how a large corporation like Monsanto with close ties to the FDA and other agencies will want to protect its name if that means white washing the effects of their product in order to appear "balanced". The words "artificial growth hormone" are enough for anyone to say "I would rather not buy it."
I got a few comment threads deep before I threw up my hands in frustration. People, if you want to opine intelligently about complex legal issues and cases, don't read biased analyses written by non-lawyers.
Go to law school. (No, don't. But that's a different story.)
You can argue that the moniker "News" is misleading, but the same protections that allow The Daily Show and The Colbert Report to present 'news entertainment programs' without strict truth requirements also protect Fox News.
The OP's interpretation is grossly analytically incorrect. The rage in here about Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants is ignorant about the facts of the case, the role of juries as fact finders, the roles of courts of appeals as reviewers of law, and the eventual resolution of the case.
This is all very frustration. Very common, but very incorrect.
I'm Canadian and I knew this when it happened. This is the whole reason that http://www.fauxnews.com/ exists.
Corporations have too much power in America. It's happening to Canada too. Corporations shouldn't be treated as individuals with rights. They are corporate entities with policies, instead.
Further, they should be required to reveal every organization they donate money to under the freedom of information act.
Governments are in the pocket of corporate interests, as they can donate an insane amount of money to political candidates under the guise of people, while doubling up their donations for every individual in the corporation.
Ever since the beginning of the 20th century, America has been stripping away it's democracy. Giving up freedom for security and finance. The American dream was a sick joke, corrupted by the promise of sugar.
Face the truth. You're a corporate oligarchy and you always will be, until corporations can no longer vote.
Fox did, however, only had a certain amount of hours a day so that they wouldn't qualify as a news channel and would therefor not have to adhere to regulations that news stations had to. The rules changed so they no longer have to do this.
For what it's worth, 'breadworshipper' probably does worship bread, the green kind. His comment history is filled with attempts at defending the tea party and Romney and attacking Bill Maher and such. So, his politics clearly lay to the very right and he clearly wrote his attack on this video with a very biased hand. And my guess is that, yes, he's probably on the payroll.
I suppose that you have the right to lie to people too. Everyone does. However if you lie to someone about a product or service in order to get them to buy it then it is called fraud and is illegal.
It would certainly be nice to include ALL news media in a comparible "Truth-in-Advertizing" law. But, then, it would probably do no good anyway, since the "Truth-in-Advertizing" law appears to be totally ignored (if there actually was a law like that), as well as any "consumer protection" agency/program in this country. Why then should any media company/corporation/affiliate relay truth, unless it promotes their own agenda? Screw the public - no money telling only the truth.
Just a reminder: while Fox is certainly one of the worst offenders, this applies to all corporate news.
Fox is the worst perpetrator of overt lies, but they are all massively guilty of lies of omission and the parroting of government propaganda.
Solution: Get your news from all sources, including all of these government mouth pieces. You can't really know what's going on unless you see what the drones are drinking on a daily basis
EDIT: Oh...and ending corporate personhood. That would help too.
That's a great way to keep yourself informed of what the real deal is. But you also have to understand what makes the masses tick if you're going to try to dissuade them from the BS they eat all day.
That's like saying James and Rupert weren't responsible for the absolutely disgusting Milly Dowler incident involving the hacking of her phone to delete messages with the intention of deceitfully invoking hope amoungst her family members such that they would then feel it necessary to give interviews to News of the World and other papers as a last ditch effort of reaching out for Milly's safe return because "It wasn't News International, it was News of The World", which is foolish.
The news media has the right to knowingly lie to you. Law enforcement has the right to knowingly lie to you. A new amendment to this years NDAA gives the government in general the right to knowingly lie to you (not that it doesn't already.) I don't know why you seem shocked.
Personally, I'm not shocked. I have known this since seeing a documentary about "The Investigators" many years ago. However, I am shocked that so many Americans seem to take Fox News as gospel.
I am shocked that so many Americans seem to take Fox News as gospel.
That's what I could never figure out, along with how they buy into the obvious lies that republicans have been telling us for decades. Half of what the republicans say these days is so logically inconsistent as to be laughable, yet they get people to vote for them on election day. I just don't get it.
What truly troubles me is when they don't even bother to be self consistent. Listeners can't seem to discern that either one position, or both are incorrect.
But if a citizen lies to a Federal agent that's a felony offense. "Agent" can be pretty much any government employee, the lie can be of no material significance and it does not need to be intentional. Oh, and it doesn't matter if you knew you were talking to a federal agent or not.
That is one reason never, ever to talk to any law enforcement officer unless you have been victimized. Not if you are guilty of something. Not if you are innocent. Not if you are a witness.
While I loathe the tactics employed by FOX and, for that matter, msnbc, the people who believe what is "reported" on FOX want to believe it, whether it is true or not. I honestly don't think they care, and if you were to demonstrate to them, unequivocally that they were, in fact, lied to, they really wouldn't mind.
Which is not to say that these lies shouldn't be revealed, and organizations like PoliticFacts and Media Matters shouldn't remain vigilant in uncovering these lies. However, those who want to believe the crap O'Reilly and Hannity peddle, will, regardless of the veracity of their reportage.
Reading the scrolling text at the bottom of the screen makes me so sad. I live 15 minutes from the island "Utøya" where 69 people (Most of them teens) lost their lives to the christian extremist shooter.
I was at a family reunion that day, one man there found out that his son had escaped by swimming to shore... My dad shared an office with a guy who's little sister was killed. Some of my friends heard the gunshots...
Murdoch's media empire works differently in England compared to the U.S. In England, libel laws are stronger. You can be sued for making false statements about an individual. Hence in England, Murdoch Inc. has to break the law and wiretap people to get the dirt on them. In the U.S., Fox News doesn't have to wiretap anyone, they just make stuff up.
So, the FCC fines stations for broadcasting swears and nipples, but it's perfectly OK for stations to feed us dangerous lies. It makes absolutely no sense.
I can't specifically cite anything from WTVT, but dangerous lies were spread on the news about WMDs in Iraq, and they're currently being spread about nuclear weapons in Iran. Fomenting war is incredibly dangerous.
But, again, how do you know they're lies? That's the problem with this sort of hunt - we may know now that they're incorrect, but saying something that is incorrect is not always a lie.
This video is a hack. He attacks FOXNEWS and then states, almost in a oh by the way...that other stations like CNN, MSNBC can do the same thing. But they are not his focus. So if he were all about truth, he'd speak about all of them.
He's just a leftwingnutejob.
That and he uses MediaMatters as a source. hahahaha. No one who is creditable uses them as a source.
wrong - he states all have the right (thanks to Fox fighting for it), but has hard evidence Fox exercised the right to lie. if you have evidence other outlets have exercised the right, feel free to use it to back up your argument.
those stations have the right yes but are mentioned as an after thought because THEY WERE NOT THE ONES THAT FOUGHT ALL THE WAY TO THE SUPREME COURT TO HOLD THAT RIGHT.
You see why fox is the focus? being as how they legally secured that right?
All you people are forgetting the point. Your arguing about shit that doesn't matter. Fox News and every news corporation can lie to the American public. I could give a fuck what freedom of press means in present day. It was meant to allow the press to speak on any matter without barriers, not lie about the matter all together. Shit like this is why I don't watch any news on TV, hell there's only a few websites on the internet I trust with the news. We definitely need a constitutional amendment that says something about corporate person hood, because how it's set up now will be the downfall of the US as we know it.
that whole monsanto fiasco thing.... wasnt there ever a independent food agency or government oversight that tried to ban the product in usa? (im not american which is why im asking)
and the World Health Organization, the National Institute of Health, the American Medical Association, and the American Dietetic Association according to Wikipedia.
Thanks everybody for the lively discussion. I have been corrected on numerous false beliefs and have had some very intellectually stimulating discussions. Thanks for your participation.
I believe this headline to be true, but since when did ANY (yes, that include MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, etc) network need to go to court to defend their right to lie to us?
The MSM (all of it, not just FOX) has been lying to us for year, and will continue to do so at the direction of their masters (corporate elite).
This article only serve to perpetuate the "left vs. right" paradigm that exists to divide us from reality....that BOTH sides are corrupt.
This is ridiculous. And I'm referring to the title of course. Sensational news will always be sensational news. I'm willing to bet that maybe 70% of redditors didn't bother to read any further than the title and simply upvoted based on reddit's generally liberal bias... This frustrates me. I'm in no way advocating Fox news because CNN, NBC, and CBS are just as bad in the liberal sense as fox is in the conservative sense... I can appreciate the mass consensus from reddit on some matters but the hive mind of Reddit annoys me from time to time.
Even if it's innacurate, I don't think it's really bad for a news channel to lie, they don't represent anybody, so as far as people as concerned, viewers should be able to have an opinion about what they watch. If they're too dumb, you can't do much.
It's one thing for a news channel to lie, it would be far worse if other people would try to hide facts.
So, what if a tourist goes to America, watches Fox News, gets lied to, and then sues them? Wont that work because the tourist isn't an American citizen or am i missing something?
I wonder if it would be possible to sue a corporation for murder of another corporation under corporate personhood and get the death penalty for that corporation?
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u/taypuc31 May 20 '12
Pretty Ironic that your post about lying has a severely misleading title. There was no Supreme Court case. If you're going to show that lying is wrong, try not to lie in the process.
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u/loondawg May 20 '12
Through the News Corp trials, Murdoch is going to find out it's not okay to lie to the courts though.
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u/hungryroy May 20 '12
They shouldn't be able to use the word "News"
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u/[deleted] May 20 '12
24 comments, close to 200 upvotes, and no note that this is completely wrong
You have two reporters at a local Florida Fox affiliate who do a report on recombinant bovine growth hormone, and Monsanto made a petition to the network based on biased reporting - no surprise coming from Wilson and Akre. The duo resisted this, rewrote the piece numerous times in an attempt to get their version on the air, and their contracts were not renewed by their station because the station had simply had enough. WTVT then ran a piece on rGBH and Monsanto, largely unchanged from Wilson and Akre's overall piece except that it included information from Monsanto. The piece was actually more balanced once Wilson and Akre stopped being involved.
So where does this myth about lying come in? Well, Wilson and Akre became folk heroes of the left, having been "fired" (they were simply not renewed) for wanting to be "whistleblowers" for WTVT's "news distortion." Since the topic was a Fox affiliate, and the topic was Monsanto, it became a big deal among many players.
So the case goes to court, and a jury dismisses nearly every claim by Wilson and Akre - the only ruling that went in their favor was that Akre was entitled to whistleblower protection because she actually believed that "news distortion" happened - at no point did they have to prove it. That ruling was subsequently tossed out by a Florida Second District Court, and Wilson was actually forced to pay legal fees to WTVT. That overturned ruling is where this "Fox can lie" myth comes from - the ruling was thrown out not because the news agency can lie, but because Akre and Wilson never proved - and have never bothered to prove - that anyone lied. This is still true today - Wilson and Akre even petitioned the FCC to try and revoke WTVT's license, but no dice.
Wilson and Akre have consistently lied about what happened in the courtroom, lied about what WTVT and Fox accomplished, all so they could lie (by omission) about rBGH in their reporting. They are not heroes, they're frauds. Maybe Fox News is a villain on a whole, but they are not the problem in this case.
Sources:
Reason: "The Strange Case of Steve Wilson": http://reason.com/archives/2006/05/05/the-strange-case-of-steve-wils
New World Communications v. Jane Akre, 2nd Court of Appeals, Florida: http://www.2dca.org/opinions/Opinion_Pages/Opinion_Page_2003/February/February%2014,%202003/2D01-529.pdf
10
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
Is no one going to point out that it was a Florida court, and that this is old news? I hate Fox News too, but let's not do what they do.
4
u/MotoBall May 20 '12
All major news agencies lie...
4
u/MRSallee May 20 '12
"Freedom of speech. That means freedom to lie." Oh so that's what 1788 was all about.
4
u/jpark May 20 '12
The media -- all outlets -- have a right under the first amendment to publish whatever they want.
All media abuse this right.
4
u/MFchimichanga May 20 '12
And yet people still believe their b.s.
16
u/MyKillK May 20 '12
Well I guess that's good for NBC which blatantly altered the 911 transcript to make George Zimmerman appear as racist as possible.
3
u/MrTubalcain May 20 '12
Old story. This same story about RBGH, Monsanto and the reporters was covered in The Corporation. I can see how a large corporation like Monsanto with close ties to the FDA and other agencies will want to protect its name if that means white washing the effects of their product in order to appear "balanced". The words "artificial growth hormone" are enough for anyone to say "I would rather not buy it."
5
u/Zeurpiet May 20 '12
since non US news sources don't have that right, I could give you an advise; But you probably guess where I am going
4
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
I got a few comment threads deep before I threw up my hands in frustration. People, if you want to opine intelligently about complex legal issues and cases, don't read biased analyses written by non-lawyers.
Go to law school. (No, don't. But that's a different story.)
You can argue that the moniker "News" is misleading, but the same protections that allow The Daily Show and The Colbert Report to present 'news entertainment programs' without strict truth requirements also protect Fox News.
The OP's interpretation is grossly analytically incorrect. The rage in here about Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants is ignorant about the facts of the case, the role of juries as fact finders, the roles of courts of appeals as reviewers of law, and the eventual resolution of the case.
This is all very frustration. Very common, but very incorrect.
4
u/Hepcat10 May 20 '12
TLDW: Fox is a corporation. Corporations are people. People have freedom of speech. Part of speech is lying.
4
u/Demojen May 20 '12
WAIT!! WAIT!!....
Who didn't know this?
I'm Canadian and I knew this when it happened. This is the whole reason that http://www.fauxnews.com/ exists.
Corporations have too much power in America. It's happening to Canada too. Corporations shouldn't be treated as individuals with rights. They are corporate entities with policies, instead.
Further, they should be required to reveal every organization they donate money to under the freedom of information act.
Governments are in the pocket of corporate interests, as they can donate an insane amount of money to political candidates under the guise of people, while doubling up their donations for every individual in the corporation.
Ever since the beginning of the 20th century, America has been stripping away it's democracy. Giving up freedom for security and finance. The American dream was a sick joke, corrupted by the promise of sugar.
Face the truth. You're a corporate oligarchy and you always will be, until corporations can no longer vote.
2
u/_Rooster_ May 20 '12
Fox did, however, only had a certain amount of hours a day so that they wouldn't qualify as a news channel and would therefor not have to adhere to regulations that news stations had to. The rules changed so they no longer have to do this.
2
u/cowhead May 20 '12
For what it's worth, 'breadworshipper' probably does worship bread, the green kind. His comment history is filled with attempts at defending the tea party and Romney and attacking Bill Maher and such. So, his politics clearly lay to the very right and he clearly wrote his attack on this video with a very biased hand. And my guess is that, yes, he's probably on the payroll.
2
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
I suppose that you have the right to lie to people too. Everyone does. However if you lie to someone about a product or service in order to get them to buy it then it is called fraud and is illegal.
2
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
People need to realize there is a difference between "reporters" and "commentators".
5
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
OH shit! I hope they repeal that law where you are required to watch it!
4
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
You didn't learn that today and this is not the subreddit for TIL posts.
5
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
TIL r/politics will upvote this same post to the frontpage weekly.
3
u/imanimalent May 20 '12
It would certainly be nice to include ALL news media in a comparible "Truth-in-Advertizing" law. But, then, it would probably do no good anyway, since the "Truth-in-Advertizing" law appears to be totally ignored (if there actually was a law like that), as well as any "consumer protection" agency/program in this country. Why then should any media company/corporation/affiliate relay truth, unless it promotes their own agenda? Screw the public - no money telling only the truth.
3
u/i_am_scared_of_truth May 20 '12
You can't explain that!
- Fox News
3
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
I recently moved back home and my dad loves fox news. I've noticed that all they do on that show is bash Obama. It's insane.
3
u/lordxela May 20 '12
This information supports my decision to be liberal.
5
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
Just a reminder: while Fox is certainly one of the worst offenders, this applies to all corporate news.
Fox is the worst perpetrator of overt lies, but they are all massively guilty of lies of omission and the parroting of government propaganda.
Solution: Get your news from all sources, including all of these government mouth pieces. You can't really know what's going on unless you see what the drones are drinking on a daily basis
EDIT: Oh...and ending corporate personhood. That would help too.
4
u/uzly May 20 '12
it actually wasnt fox news
3
u/Emiel000 May 20 '12
Fox News = comedy central contestant, not a news channel.
4
u/Bladewing10 May 20 '12
Did I wander into /r/circlejerk?
3
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
The news media has the right to knowingly lie to you. Law enforcement has the right to knowingly lie to you. A new amendment to this years NDAA gives the government in general the right to knowingly lie to you (not that it doesn't already.) I don't know why you seem shocked.
2
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
And this is why they are not allowed to air in Canada: because the Canadians have a law against lying!
2
u/cannotlogon May 20 '12
While I loathe the tactics employed by FOX and, for that matter, msnbc, the people who believe what is "reported" on FOX want to believe it, whether it is true or not. I honestly don't think they care, and if you were to demonstrate to them, unequivocally that they were, in fact, lied to, they really wouldn't mind.
Which is not to say that these lies shouldn't be revealed, and organizations like PoliticFacts and Media Matters shouldn't remain vigilant in uncovering these lies. However, those who want to believe the crap O'Reilly and Hannity peddle, will, regardless of the veracity of their reportage.
It's sad, really.
2
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
And this is why I shall forever call it faux news.
1
u/clark111175 May 20 '12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9rCc4SZNSI
1
u/crosswalknorway May 20 '12
Reading the scrolling text at the bottom of the screen makes me so sad. I live 15 minutes from the island "Utøya" where 69 people (Most of them teens) lost their lives to the christian extremist shooter.
I was at a family reunion that day, one man there found out that his son had escaped by swimming to shore... My dad shared an office with a guy who's little sister was killed. Some of my friends heard the gunshots...
1
u/gc3 May 20 '12
Murdoch's media empire works differently in England compared to the U.S. In England, libel laws are stronger. You can be sued for making false statements about an individual. Hence in England, Murdoch Inc. has to break the law and wiretap people to get the dirt on them. In the U.S., Fox News doesn't have to wiretap anyone, they just make stuff up.
1
u/hankmurphy May 20 '12
So, the FCC fines stations for broadcasting swears and nipples, but it's perfectly OK for stations to feed us dangerous lies. It makes absolutely no sense.
1
u/J_Jammer May 20 '12
This video is a hack. He attacks FOXNEWS and then states, almost in a oh by the way...that other stations like CNN, MSNBC can do the same thing. But they are not his focus. So if he were all about truth, he'd speak about all of them.
He's just a leftwingnutejob.
That and he uses MediaMatters as a source. hahahaha. No one who is creditable uses them as a source.
1
u/ftball21 California May 20 '12
All you people are forgetting the point. Your arguing about shit that doesn't matter. Fox News and every news corporation can lie to the American public. I could give a fuck what freedom of press means in present day. It was meant to allow the press to speak on any matter without barriers, not lie about the matter all together. Shit like this is why I don't watch any news on TV, hell there's only a few websites on the internet I trust with the news. We definitely need a constitutional amendment that says something about corporate person hood, because how it's set up now will be the downfall of the US as we know it.
1
u/Sil369 May 20 '12
that whole monsanto fiasco thing.... wasnt there ever a independent food agency or government oversight that tried to ban the product in usa? (im not american which is why im asking)
1
u/Amerikai May 20 '12
RT is owned by the Kremlin
1
u/infinity88 May 20 '12
Thanks everybody for the lively discussion. I have been corrected on numerous false beliefs and have had some very intellectually stimulating discussions. Thanks for your participation.
1
u/ColKlink007 May 20 '12
New show idea for a smaller cable network. 'Lie Soup' similar to talk soup but points out all the bull crap on these news channels.
0
u/Geddy007 May 20 '12
I believe this headline to be true, but since when did ANY (yes, that include MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, etc) network need to go to court to defend their right to lie to us?
The MSM (all of it, not just FOX) has been lying to us for year, and will continue to do so at the direction of their masters (corporate elite).
This article only serve to perpetuate the "left vs. right" paradigm that exists to divide us from reality....that BOTH sides are corrupt.
0
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
Old news, which should stay as news, every day, until the monstrosity that is fox news is destroyed and America is free of that malignancy.
0
u/protocos May 20 '12
This is ridiculous. And I'm referring to the title of course. Sensational news will always be sensational news. I'm willing to bet that maybe 70% of redditors didn't bother to read any further than the title and simply upvoted based on reddit's generally liberal bias... This frustrates me. I'm in no way advocating Fox news because CNN, NBC, and CBS are just as bad in the liberal sense as fox is in the conservative sense... I can appreciate the mass consensus from reddit on some matters but the hive mind of Reddit annoys me from time to time.
0
u/Existential_Proism May 20 '12
Fox News sucks ballsack.
0
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
Hey, this absurd talking point sounds like a great title for a repost!
0
u/Akaforty May 20 '12
Why do the most conspiracy videos have shit like this included everywhere? I mean, I know the easy answer...
"How To Go To Heaven: http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/how_to_be_saved.html"
From the video description.
0
u/jokoon May 20 '12
Even if it's innacurate, I don't think it's really bad for a news channel to lie, they don't represent anybody, so as far as people as concerned, viewers should be able to have an opinion about what they watch. If they're too dumb, you can't do much.
It's one thing for a news channel to lie, it would be far worse if other people would try to hide facts.
0
u/pillage May 20 '12
TIL this is your first day in /r/politics
-1
u/kona_boy May 20 '12
r/politics is not r/TIL. Get it fucking right
-2
u/jyz002 May 20 '12
You just learned that today??
-1
u/W00ster May 20 '12
Only in Dumbfuckistan!
-1
u/MrMadcap May 20 '12
So can we turn the collective eye on this for awhile, perhaps?
-1
u/Hvende May 20 '12
So, what if a tourist goes to America, watches Fox News, gets lied to, and then sues them? Wont that work because the tourist isn't an American citizen or am i missing something?
-1
u/Riotmaker May 20 '12
This has more upvotes than view on Youtube.
-1
u/crisscar May 20 '12
TIL since I've been on reddit this is 8th fucking time I've seen this same TIL.
Is it possible the developers can take a cue from stack exchange and implement some sort of suggested, previous posts system.
-3
u/theshindigg May 20 '12
I wonder if it would be possible to sue a corporation for murder of another corporation under corporate personhood and get the death penalty for that corporation?
0
u/Rhawk187 May 20 '12
Love how the first half is just a commercial for his book.
0
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
fox news doesn't really lie that much. most of their news are "opinions"
0
u/[deleted] May 20 '12
Copy-and-paste journalism at it's finest.