Off on a tangent from the previous threat about the “We deceive, You Believe” network, can we make them retract something that is provably not true?
I’ve heard many people’s statements paraphrased to the point that the paraphrase no longer means what the original quote meant. Is there something like the concept of ‘legislative intent’ covering that situation?
How about if they use a quote that has an exculpatory qualifier in the very next sentence that the don’t broadcast? Later in the same speech?
How about if they keep hammering on something that has already been apologised for?
How about tone of voice? Is there at some point where a “sneering tone” becomes legally recongnized?
I’d like to hear all thoughts, let make this a nice long thread…
Legally, they can of course do any and all of these things. If you want any other answer, ask a mod to move this to GD.
The nerve of Fox News, using a criminal tone of voice. In the name of free speach we need to shut them down!!
Maybe we should rename this thread: Why are lefties such sore losers? Fox has catipulted to the top of cable news, and the left is just in a dither.
The government can’t shut down a teevee station for making false statements. That would be censorship. But they can be sued for libel. I’m sure if you were harmed by a false statement of theirs and could prove it, they would be happy to retract the false statement rather than lose a lawsuit.
However, as the other thread states, you have to actually be harmed by their false statement to have a chance of a successful lawsuit. The mere fact that they said something that isn’t true is not enough. You would have to prove in court that what they said wasn’t true, and also that you were harmed by it. It would be extremely difficult for you to prove you were harmed by Fox claiming to be “Fair and Balanced”, and it would also be pretty hard for you to prove to a jury that the claim is false.
It IS interesting to have all these threads about using the power of government to shut down Fox for saying things people don’t agree with. Fox is a freaking teevee station. If you think their “reporting”, “news”, and “commentary” are crap, that’s why God invented remote controls. Or you could tell all your friends that Fox is crap and they shouldn’t watch it.
Brian Mulroney made an easy 2 million due to a leaked letter asking for an investigation of him… even though he was sueing for 50 million. Not sure about how he would have proved damages or how his reputation could have possibly been damaged by such an alegation… but I guess that’s old news anyways…
There were factual questions here, but they seem to have been answered, so I’ll close this thread. I don’t really think this is Great Debates material as is. If you want to start a new thread in GD to debate the fairness of such news reporting tactics, you may do so.
And I would remind John Mace that this is not the forum for taking political potshots.
bibliophage
moderator GQ