A bit much. Set the precedent...5 years from now, you'll be singing an entirely different tune. What do you suppose Desantis Admin is going to do with demonstrable falsehoods perpetuated by the MSM? What goes around...
I agree. A free press needs to be free of government fact checking. Indeed, if power over the press was given to DeSantis, we’d wouldn’t even hear about a cloudy day in Tallahassee.
The Post focuses on why Fox kept going with fraud claims that it knew were false. Executives sent frantic messages about declining ratings right after the election. Its primary audience simply didn’t want to hear that Biden had legitimately won. So they gave plenty of airtime to the bogus claims of fraud. Fox News feared losing viewers by airing truth about election, documents show https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/02/17/fox-news-dominion-ratings-fear/
Sounds like my first day lecture on the media. I tell my students up front that American media is a private, for profit business and that everything flows from that.
My view isn’t quite so cynical. I don’t think most reporters and editors at newspapers are thinking about profit very much. TV is going to be a little different with ratings more immediate. But I still don’t know if any TV news has ever gone weeks and weeks wuth stuff it knew was false because it helped ratings. Of course, there could be examples I’m not aware of.
Twitter files reveal employees doing their best to moderate content in a challenging environment: Mass outrage that Twitter is a propaganda outlet for the left Fox News texts reveal that the channel was knowingly and blatantly lying: *Crickets* I could be wrong but it kinda seems like some people are not being completely objective in their criticism of the media. I'm sure it's not them being biased though because we know they HATE how biased the media is.
Scotus has ruled that free speech becomes treason when it violates the 4 things below. 1 an overt act 2 testified to by two witnesses, 3 manifesting an intent to betray the United States (which can be inferred from the overt act itself), 4 providing aid and comfort to the enemy. With these text messages admitting all these people knew they were lying, I think the only one questionable would be "providing aid and comfort to the enemy." Do I really think they should actually be charged with treason and shot? No. But there is no absolutist free press and their intent was clearly to overthrow democratic transfer of power and thus betray the country. That's way different than just lying in the press. There have been many rulings that limit free press when it involves inciting breach of peace. As well as other limits on free press, such as the OG topic of the thread in regards to defamation.
Actually specifically defined in the Constitutional text, the only crime so defined. Not a judicial gloss https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artIII-S3-C1-2/ALDE_00013525/
I'm ready to take heavy fire for this but I'll bite. Fox is on a level of its own and any examples I give is not meant to be a tit for tat comparison but opinion news shows are all guilty of pushing false narratives before vetting stories or covering issues disproportionately. One example would be race relations and how fast some networks are to stoke the flames before vetting stories.
No heavy fire from me. It’s about eyeballs on your station, tweet, whatever; all of it equals money. Fox is especially egregious in this regard. Anything on TV after 7 pm is nonsense for the most part unless something big is breaking.
I knew that but wasn't the specific 4 pt benchmark laid out in Kramer? Maybe I'm just convoluting things.
Like the difference between driving 75 MPH in a 70 and 75 MPH in a 25. Just not remotely comparable until we get some MSNBC evidence of the CEO telling staff something like "I don't care if that story isn't true, just get out there and push the race angle anyway to keep our ratings up." There's a pretty big difference between getting something wrong because you rushed to be first and knowingly pushing a false narrative. Fox News is about to learn the difference in court as well.
One more time, this is not tit for tat. Clearly this is a different level example of what's wrong with Fox but I'd also argue that the subject matter in this case in that it crossed over into democratic processes is what elevates it beyond the other networks. Acting like lesser examples of networks knowingly pushing narratives that were not vetted or even purposely skewed doesn't absolve the major networks that do it. It's all unhealthy for the country. 3rd time. This is not an I know you are but what am I take. Fox has literally damaged my own family's dynamic.
I don't think they should be shot either. Something much slower is preferable. Burned at the stake or buried up to the neck in sand amidst a swarm of fire ants.
Some serious short term thinking there. Seems based on these internal comms, they actually thought they would permanently lose their audience to OAN and Newsmax if they didn’t go all in on lies? Knowingly peddling lies for financial gain (ratings). When does that cross into the realm of fraud?
Same people peddling 2000 mules or linking to fake newz rants about “mainstream media” dishonesty. Either self awareness is lacking or intellectual integrity.
