The attorneys for Fox, owned by media baron Rupert Murdock, successfully argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves. We are pushing for a consumer protection solution that labels news content according to its adherence to ethical journalism standards that have been codified by the Society of Professional Journalists (Ethics: spj.org).
A News Quality Rating System and Content Labeling approach, follows a tradition of consumer protection product labeling, that is very familiar to Americans. The ratings are anti-censorship and can benefit consumers. It also begs the question about SKY NEWS reporting! But we already new the Mainstream media is not what you should be relying on for real news.
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“This case was all about reporter Steve Wilson and his wife, working not for FNC but for a Fox affiliate in Florida (it would later be a Fox-owned station but this all began when it was still independent). The kerfuffle was over their report on the safety of a Monsanto food additive. The station refused to air the original version deeming it one-sided. Wilson and Wife, having refused to allow Monsanto’s point of view in the story, were eventually let go, and a report aired without their participation. Lawrence Grossman in the Columbia Journalism Review stated it was:”
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‘a strong and effective three-part investigative series on the subject, produced by a different reporter, Nathan Lang. His series was hardly any different in substance from the versions that Akre and Wilson and the station had been battling over the previous year.’
http://www.allbusiness.com/information/publishing-industries/773214-1.html
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“So much for the Fox plot to bury the story. As for the truth of the allegations, the Washington Post summed it up:”
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‘Could hormones meant to make cows give more milk lead to early puberty, as some parents fear? On its face, it sounds plausible enough. But government and pediatric health experts say there are no scientific data to back up such an association. For one thing, they say, rBGH does not survive pasteurization. And even if it did, they add, it has absolutely no effect on human growth. “Not only is there no evidence” that rBGH affects human growth, says Paul Kaplowitz, the new chief of endocrinology at Children’s National Medical Center and a specialist in the issue of early puberty, “it’s not even scientifically possible.”…
“The thing has been studied up and down and sideways; there are no safety issues to consumers,” said Susan Ruland, vice president for communications of the IDFA, which represents both conventional and organic milk producers. Many consumers, however, don’t seem to be getting the message.’
http://www.purefood.org/rbgh/oca_rbgh.cfm
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“Wilson and Wife sued WTVT. The jury threw out Wilson’s case, but found for his wife on the issue of wrongful termination of a whistleblower. Then the appeals court stepped in with its widely cited (but rarely quoted verbatim) decision.
Keep in mind that the court did not find anything about the 1st Amendment giving broadcasters the right to “legally lie”. How could that be relevant, as there was no issue in the case involving “lying”, and the court was never asked to rule on any such issue. The court’s decision (which makes no mention of the 1st Amendment) resolved an employment dispute, centering on the issue of whether Wilson’s wife qualified under the legal definition of “whistleblower”. They found that she did not, based on a complicated technicality. Whistleblowers expose violations of laws, rules, or regulations. The FCC does have policies regarding “news distortion”, but do they amount to a “rule”? The court didn’t find that they did, but said even if they did amount to a “rule”, there was another impediment. To apply in a termination suit Florida law required that rules be “adopted” rather than put in place via an adjudicative procedure. For those reasons, Ms Akre’s victory was reversed, leaving both plaintiffs with unsuccessful verdicts.”
http://www.2dca.org/opinion/February%2014,%202003/2D01-529.pdf
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“Wilson and his cohorts claimed that the court “ruled” that media have the right to lie, despite the fact that the court made no such ruling and there was no “lying” at issue in the suit. This spin was echoed by Salon, Biotalk, and others. Then this week’s post from ceasespin made it Big News all over again.”
http://www.reason.com/news/show/36646.html
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“Today Steve Wilson is a reporter for WXYZ-TV in Detroit, where his antics are still raising eyebrows and questions. A specialist in “ambush” journalism, Wilson is nonetheless a hero to the blue blogs and Fox haters who attack Bill O’Reilly for the same tactic.”
http://www.reason.com/news/show/36646.html
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FOX News Haters Week In Review
http://homepage.mac.com/mkoldys/blog/sre267918713.html
StewartIII is a Fox apologist and operative – don’t believe his comments.
Fox’s unethical brand of “journalism” is well documented on media matters and other websites.