On 5/31/2011 5:58 AM, Invisible wrote:
> On 31/05/2011 13:42, Francois Labreque wrote:
>
>> A few years ago, one reporter refused to report
>> something that he felt was factually incorrect and he was fired. He sued
>> for wrongful dismisal and lost. The case was appealed all the way to the
>> Supreme Court and they ruled that FOX News was under no obligation to
>> tell the truth under the free speech clause of the 1st amendment of the
>> the US Constitution.
>
> Now here's a peculiar thing. Many people seem to hold the opinion that
> "the media" publishes news as a service to the public, so that we can
> all live in an informed democracy. They seem to regard the media as the
> sacred guardians of of the Holy Truth, and speak about journalistic
> freedom as being vital to our existence and so forth.
>
The reason for this has been two fold - 1) Up until Fox, no one 
"intentionally" distorted facts, in any grand, unified, and clear way, 
intended to push an agenda, or at least on anything like this scale and 
apparently perception of legitimacy, 2) for the most part, the news 
media *tried* to research things, and get their facts right, even if 
they often screwed up via time-bias (which is to say that enough time 
passes that any correction becomes meaningless, especially when stated 
in a 30 second blurb, instead of the 30 minute special on the subject 
they ran previously).

Fox is notable in that they ignore the very idea of trying to report 
facts, they do about as much "research" as your average creationist, and 
they *****never***** correct their own statements, unless they 
correction makes their sides politics look better, after the correction, 
and they have enough material to make sure the correct version sticks 
(even if they have to make up shit to fill in the time).

We really need a clear legal definition of News in this country, clear 
standards as to how you correct errors, and, more to the point, a way to 
very clearly, without resorting to shit like libel and slander, which 
you will never be able to nail them on, to differentiate between what is 
actual news, or tries to be, and what chooses to become to video 
equivalent of "Weekly World News". If we cannot, and will not, make a 
clear distinction, we can't trust any of them, since at any moment they 
could all start intentionally lying to us, about everything, and no one 
would need a Chinese like, government run, propaganda bureau , to make 
it happen. Mind, they would all probably be making up completely 
contradictory lies, but that hardly helps, if you can't find the real 
facts buried any place among them.

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