FL Judge: It's OK For The Media To Deliberately Lie

[goofyfish]

A Florida judge ruled that it's technically legal for the media to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast. PDF Court Documents.

LAKELAND -- A state appeals court overturned a $425,000 jury award to a former Tampa television news reporter who claimed she was fired for refusing to include misleading information in a story. In a unanimous decision Friday, the 2nd District Court of Appeal said Jane Akre failed to show the Tampa station, Fox affiliate WTVT, had violated any state laws...

Akre and then-husband Steve Wilson claimed WTVT executives and a Fox network attorney encouraged inclusion of false statements in a story about bovine growth hormone, or BGH, a substance manufactured by the Monsanto Corp. (Full text here )

Akre and Wilson refused, despite repeated attempts by the station to have the story altered and an offer to terminate them with full pay if they never spoke of their BGH findings. The station prevailed, with the judge citing that there is no FCC rule or regulation that specifically makes it illegal to mislead, distort, or falsify the news. By appealing the decision on the grounds it did, are they not admitting that they mislead, distort, and falsify the news? "We report. You decide." But they never claimed they were reporting the truth, now did they?

When I consider all of the people in this country who blindly trust the national news media to give them unbiased, accurate information, it sends a chill down my spine.

:m: Peace.

 

[Tiassa]

How could we guess it was "FOX"?

Well, this is what to expect of an Australian billionaire on a bender.

I mean, our local Fox station ran two segments per broadcast on "American Idol" during the first week of the show. Last night, the "Joe Millionaire" special was the lead story, ahead of botched transplants, terrorism, war, and natural disaster.

In addition, Fox is still pissed about the "COPS" decision.

I've told this one before, but back about 1997, I heard an NPR interview with a Chicago-based reporter for one of the major locals who wrote a story about organic milk and BGH. Studies found nutritional differences between organic milk and also a higher infection rate (triple) in the udder, leading to the homogonization of more pus for everyone. (At the same period, every carton of organic milk I bought had a disclaimer by law that there was no difference in flavor, character, or nutritional value between organic and industrial milk, an obvious falsehood.) At any rate, one of the dairy boards threatened to pull advertising from the paper, so the story was quashed. The reporter, as allowed by her contract, sought secondary publication of the article. An independent rag in Chicago picked up the story, and the newspaper she worked for fired her despite the fact that she was allowed to do what she did.

:m:,
Tiassa

 

[Zero]

It's why you either ignore news altogether or take up the practice of watching and comparing stuff from a liberal channel and a conservative channel. Viewpoints.