Did Fox News Argue for the "Right" to Lie in Their "Reporting" in Court?

[LaydeeBug]

Does this sound familiar to anyone? I hope I am not going on a fishing expedition.

[lob1]

1. I don't know if that's how Fox framed their argument,

but the court decision was that Fox wasn't obligated to tell the truth, even though it's a "news" station.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Yes they did

Give me a while to find the link from years ago which concerned two of their reporters who they sacked.

edit to add ;

Its here : http://www.all-natural.com/news0498.html That was the first I found. If you search the names of the two reporters you should find others.

[csziggy]

3. Yes A Fox quote: "The News is what we say it is."

This diary was originally posted and Front Paged July 31, 2007

In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with an assertion by FOX News that there is no rule against distorting or falsifying the news in the United States.

Lawyers argued in court that Fox can lie with impunity. The reporters refused and threatened to report Fox's actions to the FCC, they were both fired.

Fox News has the right to lie under the 1st Amendment.
The Right to Lie!

<SNIP>

MONEY QUOTE

We just paid 3 Billion dollars for these television stations, we'll tell you what the news is. The News is what we say it is.

* Zwoof's diary :: ::
*

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.

December 1996, Jane Akre and her husband, Steve Wilson, were hired by FOX as a part of the Fox "Investigators" team at WTVT in Tampa Bay, Florida.to investigat bovine growth hormone (BGH), a controversial substance manufactured by Monsanto Corporation.

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.

More, with links and video: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/8/15/21055/1935/848/568666

[dipsydoodle]

4. Beat me to it.

:thumbsup:

[mmonk]

6. Thanks.

[DeSwiss]

5. Yep.

It even has its own Wiki page:

on edit: added below-

Whistleblower lawsuit

In 1997, Wilson and Akre began work on a story regarding the agricultural biotechnology company Monsanto and recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), a milk additive that had been approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration but also blamed for a number of health issues. Wilson and Akre planned a four part investigative report on Monsanto's use of rBGH, which prompted Monsanto to write to Roger Ailes, president of Fox News Channel, in an attempt to have the report reviewed for bias and because of the "enormous damage that can be done" as a result of the report.<4>

WTVT did not run the report, and later argued in court that the report was not "breakthrough journalism." Wilson and Akre then claimed that Monsanto's actions constituted the news broadcast telling lies, while WTVT countered looking only for fairness. According to Wilson and Akre, the two rewrote the report over 80 times over the course of 1997, and WTVT decided to exercise "its option to terminate their employment contracts without cause,"<5> and did not renew their contracts in 1998. WTVT later ran a report about Monsanto and rBGH in 1998, and the report included defenses from Monsanto.<6>

Following Wilson and Akre's contract not being renewed, the two filed a lawsuit concerning WTVT's "news distortion" under Florida's whistleblower laws, claiming their termination was retaliation for "resisting WTVT's attempts to distort or suppress the Monsanto recombinant bovine growth hormone story."<7> In a joint statement, Wilson claimed that he and Akre "were repeatedly ordered to go forward and broadcast demonstrably inaccurate and dishonest versions of the story," and "were given those instructions after some very high-level corporate lobbying by Monsanto (the powerful drug company that makes the hormone) and also ... by members of Florida’s dairy and grocery industries."<8> The trial commenced in summer 2000 with a jury dismissing all of the claims brought to trial by Wilson, but siding with one aspect of Akre's complaint, awarding Akre $425000 and agreeing that Akre was a whistleblower because she believed there were violations of the 1934 Federal Communications Act and because she planned on reporting WTVT to the Federal Communications Commission.

An appeal was filed, and a ruling in February 2003 came down in favor of WTVT, who successfully argued that 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<9>. ... Because the FCC's news distortion policy is not a "law, rule, or regulation" under section 448.102 of the Florida Statutes<10>, Akre has failed to state a claim under the whistle-blower's statute."<11> The appeal did not address any falsification claims, noting that "as a threshold matter ... Akre failed to state a claim under the whistle-blower's statute," but noted that the lower court ruled against all of Wilson's charges and all of Akre's claims with the exception of the whistleblower claim that was overturned.<12>

MORE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre

[AlinPA]

7. Fox "news" always argues for the rightwing.

[glitch]

8. One of the notorious cases in the book "Into the Buzzsaw"

http://www.freedomofthepress.net/intothebuzzsaw.htm

[w4rma]

9. Yeah. It was about hormones in milk. Faux wanted to lie to their listeners because to do otherwise

would make the milk lobby mad.

[librechik]

10. They were sued by two former Fox reporters who were told to lie for a report

They said it reflected badly on their integrity and their profession. The reporters lost. Fox prevailed, a decision which was taken to mean that FoxNews is free to lie--let the buyer beware. NOT FoxNews is free to lie, therefore they should not be called News.

There you go. Also, venue shopping was involved.

[flyarm]

11. yep and it happened in Florida! eom

[LaydeeBug]

12. shameless kick for a link to the ACTUAL case. nt

[KharmaTrain]

13. First Ammendment Has A Wide Path...

In short...freedom of speech can mean the freedom to lie. It's the ramifications of that lie where the legal battles can be fought. If it libels or slanders someone. Otherwise it's all open...and they can and will lie and then offer some sheepish or disengenuous retraction to cover their legal butts.

The ultimate jury on Faux are its advetisers...if they feel this slimebox operation is a liablity to spend their money on. Even then Murdoch and his Saudi buddies have deep pockets and has subsidized this syndicate in the past and will continue in the future.