Should journalists be punished for lying to the public ?

C

Challenger78

Valued Senior Member
We punish politicians for not scrutinizing their sources.
So, if a journalist runs a false story, and doesn't bother to correct it, shouldn't they be punished ?

e.g. Judith miller.
 
That is why you should NEVER EVER take anything that the media tells you as the truth. ALWAYS be sceptically and question whatever they say for they only want to get people excited and spread lies around to stir the pot. They even start rumors themselves so remember that as well. Verify everything that you read before you make any judgments about anything. :)
 
Maybe a professional organization, like the lawyers and doctors have, could handle something like that.

As far as deliberate deception, civil damages are already enforceable - the NYT could have sued Miller, for example, rather than letting her go for the publicity and promoting her partner in those articles to head of the foreign news bureau or something like that.

Fox, the technically injured party, could sue its "journalists" rather than paying them big bucks for their skill at producing Fox's desired product - namely, an audience receptive to advertising.
 
I believe they should be sentenced to a short term in prison which would by followed by a press release.
 
Yes and no

Challenger78 said:

We punish politicians for not scrutinizing their sources.
So, if a journalist runs a false story, and doesn't bother to correct it, shouldn't they be punished ?
Click to expand...

No more or less than an intelligent design advocate should be punished for pretending to be a scientist. In the end, the damage to professional and personal credibility ought to be enough. Of course, there is always a waiting cadre of similarly-guilty individuals to reinforce one's notions of validity, which leads us back to Cosmic's point above.

Critical reading. Even with what counts as journalism today, you can still get a reasonable sense of what's going on; just don't give over to any one single account.

Consider: If six people witness an event, honest descriptions will produce six variations of what has happened. Have six separate events occurred? Can any one account be trusted to represent the situation with complete accuracy?

Nonetheless, the more we know about the witnesses, the better we can understand the variations in their accounts.
 
They should be, and it would put the right wing spin machine Fox News and radio out of business in a heartbeat. They also like to be deceptive, by omision. So that needs to be accounted for as well.
 
joepistole said:
They should be, and it would put the right wing spin machine Fox News and radio out of business in a heartbeat. They also like to be deceptive, by omision. So that needs to be accounted for as well.
Click to expand...

Actually one of the biggest deliberate lies put out by a media personality were the forged memos concern G W Bush in the National Guard. It was so badly done that the documents were produced on Microsoft Word. Which did not even exist in the early seventies. Despite the glaringly obvious nature of this fallacious attack Dant Rather (who should have known better) launcehd a left-wing style smear campaign.

So get off your high horse. Both parties play the same stupid tricks.
 
Challenger78 said:
We punish politicians for not scrutinizing their sources.
So, if a journalist runs a false story, and doesn't bother to correct it, shouldn't they be punished ?

e.g. Judith miller.
Click to expand...

Yes I think they should as the consequence of their falsehoods can be quite tragic....E.G. Peirs Morgan faking photos of UK soldiers torturing,urinating and beating Iraqi's,Afghans and then (IMO) so many months later london was bombed....Even though he is not entirely to blame there should be some charges of inciting terrorism, no-one is stupid enough to take the top of a pressure cooker with pressure still inside...so he knew exactly what he was doing..but hey ho no wonder he has done a runner to the US, the ch!t thing is he is now on TV what sort of example is this for the public...?
 
By the way, I am not joking, I really think they should be killed for it.
 
Peoples whole existences are based on lies.

They lie to you when your a baby, lie to you when you get older blah, blah, blah. Lie to you here, right here. Who cares if journalists lie? If you believe them or expect honesty 24\7 then you are an idiot.

Who gives a fuck?
 
Tiassa said:
No more or less than an intelligent design advocate should be punished for pretending to be a scientist. In the end, the damage to professional and personal credibility ought to be enough. Of course, there is always a waiting cadre of similarly-guilty individuals to reinforce one's notions of validity, which leads us back to Cosmic's point above.

Critical reading. Even with what counts as journalism today, you can still get a reasonable sense of what's going on; just don't give over to any one single account.

Consider: If six people witness an event, honest descriptions will produce six variations of what has happened. Have six separate events occurred? Can any one account be trusted to represent the situation with complete accuracy?

Nonetheless, the more we know about the witnesses, the better we can understand the variations in their accounts.
Click to expand...

I agree. But if that were the case, Why is Judith Miller and the other guy (I forget his name), still on the NY Times ?

It just sickens me that they are still trusted with reporting after their reports convinced people that Iraq had WMDs.
 
TW Scott said:
Actually one of the biggest deliberate lies put out by a media personality were the forged memos concern G W Bush in the National Guard. It was so badly done that the documents were produced on Microsoft Word. Which did not even exist in the early seventies. Despite the glaringly obvious nature of this fallacious attack Dant Rather (who should have known better) launcehd a left-wing style smear campaign.

So get off your high horse. Both parties play the same stupid tricks.
Click to expand...


Journalists are meant to be professional, and granted, everyone has their slants. John Pilger likes to omit things, and Fisk can mistranslate.
 
true, but Dan Rather whether he forged the document or not, passed along what he knew was a lie. People might not remember, but Mr. Rather was a war correspondant and knew what Military memos looked like. They are very distinctive. this Memo was completely wrong on many levels. The simplest of which was the use of superscript font on numbers like 5th which military typewriters were not capable of. I was the first thing I noticed when I saw the report.
 
Its a business. Its about money. People watch stations, buy magazines and newspapers of reporters who catch their attention. I expect businesses tell the truth as often as politicians.
And in many cases to say what they say is illegal and can be taken to court. If they keep their job and you don't like it, take your money elsewhere.
 
I'd say that lies and innuendo should be spread about the journalists that do the same with their reports about others.
 
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