Public policy, social issues, gender politics, religion, civitas, and other taboo topics fall under the hammer of Shava's iconoclasmic force of natural philosophy.
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Let sleeping dogs (and fox news) lie!
Friday, March 07, 2003
11:30 PM
Referring to this article.
At 07:07 PM 3/6/2003, another friend wrote:
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.
Thank god it's not criminal for the media to lie.
It never has been, except when the lying is damaging to the reputation of persons. (libel, slander)
There are two issues here, one is ethical and one is legal.
Ethically, it is against all the professional codes of journalistic conduct for a journalist to deliberately lie (including editors and publishers instructing their journalists to lie).
You can check out the US journalistic professional ethics that the plaintiffs kept to, and their management did not. And here's an index to international standards.
However, the moment the law enters into deciding the truth in journalism, you are sunk. You may as well say goodbye to freedom of the press. It should absolutely not be illegal for media to lie, even if you don't like the case in point.
What would happen in the courts if every time a journalist reported that global warming was effecting climate, that the oil companies could take them to court for distorting the news? That would only be civil damages. What if every time a journalist said Ashcroft's policies were leading us into a loss of personal freedoms -- s/he could be put in jail?
If you think journalists shouldn't be allowed to lie -- who gets to decide, in court, what is the truth?
This is a terrible slippery slope issue, and the courts were perfectly justified.
What scares me is Fox saying that the court ruling "totally vindicated" them. If the woman's allegations were correct, then they were guilty of egregious misconduct according to journalistic ethics, and should be smacked by every other press outlet in the country.
But they won't be, because then there would be this huge pissing war, and the media companies don't want to get into which ones of them is less close to the code of ethics...
Personally, I expect that the reporter at the Sierra Times was thinking, "Shocked! I am shocked I tell you, to find ethical breaches among journalists!" Like the gendarme in Casablanca. Yah.
Speaking of journalistic standards, the Sierra Times isn't the height of journalism, and I have doubts about a journalist who can't spell Rupert Murdoch's name right in a story that is about Fox News...???
The backgrounder for the original story is here. I trust this more, and it links to source documents.
By my reading, the original trial was not a criminal trial, but a civil suit for wrongful termination, with a jury awarding damages. Akre was awarded $425K+ for her wrongful termination, and the verdict was overturned on appeal on the basis that Akre had gotten damages under the whistle blower's clause, which can be invoked when an employee blows the whistle on an employer for illegal conduct. Lying to the public, as a news organization, is not illegal.
Although there is an FCC policy against distorting the news and such, it has to do with the broadcast license renewal process. This is to say, it is the policy of the FCC to not renew the broadcast license of a media entity using the common airways *if* complaints are entered by the public when the license comes up for renewal.
That means that it isn't *illegal* for Fox to lie, but it does mean that the station could get their license yanked later on. That is the recourse via the FCC for individuals if they find that media is lying to them.
The error was on the part of Akre's representation, who should not have muddied the waters by bringing in the whistle-blower's clause. As it is, if the award was made on invalid terms in any part, the judge is justified in overturning the entire decision and award.
This is why you hire a good lawyer.
It's also why you should read the news critically...;)
|
|
| |
|
|
|
