Is Fox News bad for you?

[Ladewig]

Where do you draw the line though between free press and the freedom to knowingly tell outright lies and call it news?

Why does the line need to be drawn?
I cannot think of a bigger liar than Alex Jones and yet I believe he should have all the First Amendment rights associated with freedom of the press.

The problem with trying to draw a line which excludes Fox News is that someone has to have the power to say "when it comes to determining who is eligible for freedom of the press, this news report is truthful enough to pass the test and that news report is not truthful enough to pass the test."

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Why does the line need to be drawn?
I cannot think of a bigger liar than Alex Jones and yet I believe he should have all the First Amendment rights associated with freedom of the press.

The problem with trying to draw a line which excludes Fox News is that someone has to have the power to say "when it comes to determining who is eligible for freedom of the press, this news report is truthful enough to pass the test and that news report is not truthful enough to pass the test."

But you confuse free speech rights with the right to purposefully deceive as a news broadcaster. Those are two different issues.

And yes, it is a tricky subject, not one with clear shoulds and shouldn'ts.

There is room for some regulation, for example:
Video News Release Regulation

Video news releases, also known as prepackaged news stories, are video segments created or funded by private corporations or government agencies to be indistinguishable from standard news programs. When broadcast on the air without disclosure of the stories’ government origins, they violate prohibitions on sponsorship disclosure.

 

[fishbob]

Where do you draw the line though between free press and the freedom to knowingly tell outright lies and call it news?

How hard would it be to place a "Lying Weasel" banner on the screen where the stock market results, sports scores, and breaking news headlines usually run? I guess there might be regulatory issues involved.

How about big black letters on a piece of duct tape that you stick to your TV whenever you switch to FOX?

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

Well, lets put it this way: It's not that it's bad for you.



..... but it's certainly not good for you.

 

[dudalb]

If you accept it as The Truth, Yeah, it's bad for your mental health.

 

[Ladewig]

But you confuse free speech rights with the right to purposefully deceive as a news broadcaster. Those are two different issues.

rl]

Perhaps they are two different issues, but I am still not convinced that news broadcasters do not have the right to spin things until some folks accuse them of purposeful deception. If a news agency wants to say, "Obama has yet again committed an impeachable offense by violating the checks and balances set forth by the US Constitution by issuing an over-reaching executive order," then it is not the government's place to take any action against that agency.

 

[alfaniner]

The worst thing about my trip to the VA hospital today (aside from dodging the human feces on the sidewalk, literally) was being forced to hear FoxNews in the waiting room.

"War on whites", my ass.

 

[Trakar]

Perhaps they are two different issues, but I am still not convinced that news broadcasters do not have the right to spin things until some folks accuse them of purposeful deception. If a news agency wants to say, "Obama has yet again committed an impeachable offense by violating the checks and balances set forth by the US Constitution by issuing an over-reaching executive order," then it is not the government's place to take any action against that agency.

As long as such is properly qualified as a reporter's personal opinion that is unsupported by fact or sound reasoning, then I believe that those reporters should be allowed to say whatever they want as long as it is tolerated and supported by the people paying to keep their megaphones blaring. Having access to the public airwaves, however, should require the use of proper and clear qualification and attribution of those statements made over those public broadcast spaces and should allow for an equal and appropriate response from the other major alternative perspectives on that issue if they desire to air a rebuttal or alternative perspective.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Perhaps they are two different issues, but I am still not convinced that news broadcasters do not have the right to spin things until some folks accuse them of purposeful deception. If a news agency wants to say, "Obama has yet again committed an impeachable offense by violating the checks and balances set forth by the US Constitution by issuing an over-reaching executive order," then it is not the government's place to take any action against that agency.

Did you look at the video news release disclosure law I cited?

Your example is a tad vague and doesn't represent the extent of Fox News' purposeful deceit. However, Fox did win a court case that ruled in favor of their right to lie to the public.

We're stuck with their hypocritical newscaster opinion interjections. Showing the hypocrisy in side by side clips makes for good comedy on the John Stewart show.

But there are ways to limit such distortions being labeled as news if the regulations are properly written, like requiring sponsorship of some news be disclosed. Unfortunately the people who benefit from fake news are the ones who either won't write or would block any regulation that might benefit the news consumers.

On the other hand, I believe preventing directly paid for fake news without disclosing that news was directly paid for would win in a court challenge. Even Fox news can't likely ride out the publicity of too many fake news lawsuits. One goes unnoticed. And I'd bet their reporters are now all covered under non-disclosure agreements to avoid these sorts of exposés.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The worst thing about my trip to the VA hospital today (aside from dodging the human feces on the sidewalk, literally) was being forced to hear FoxNews in the waiting room.

"War on whites", my ass.

How do you know that wasn't dog feces?

 

[dudalb]

Did you look at the video news release disclosure law I cited?

Your example is a tad vague and doesn't represent the extent of Fox News' purposeful deceit. However, Fox did win a court case that ruled in favor of their right to lie to the public.

We're stuck with their hypocritical newscaster opinion interjections. Showing the hypocrisy in side by side clips makes for good comedy on the John Stewart show.

But there are ways to limit such distortions being labeled as news if the regulations are properly written, like requiring sponsorship of some news be disclosed. Unfortunately the people who benefit from fake news are the ones who either won't write or would block any regulation that might benefit the news consumers.

On the other hand, I believe preventing directly paid for fake news without disclosing that news was directly paid for would win in a court challenge. Even Fox news can't likely ride out the publicity of too many fake news lawsuits. One goes unnoticed. And I'd bet their reporters are now all covered under non-disclosure agreements to avoid these sorts of exposés.

Maybe you should remember that any rules that would be used against Fox News could also be used against MS NBC or Pacifica Radio.....

Sorry, but it sounds just like "Free Speech For Me,But Not For Thee"

And, btw, I NEVER watch Fox News.

 

[Ziggurat]

And this clearly proves that you can't distinguish correlation vs causation, yet you call others "stupid".

It's worse than that. The selection of topics for the study can itself produce biased results.

People don't have some uniform level of knowledge across all subjects, they are more knowledgeable about some subjects and less knowledgeable about others. And there can be systematic differences across groups. So for example, group A can know a lot about subject 1 and little about subject 2, while group B knows little about subject 1 and a lot about subject 2. If you only or even mostly test people about subject 2, then group A will appear to be less informed than group B, but it's not actually that simple. Unless you have some objective metric for subject distribution, and you make sure that your questions are evenly distributed across this metric (and these researchers did nothing of the sort), then results which show one group or the other being more or less informed will really only tell you about how well informed they are about the specific questions you asked. You cannot reasonably extrapolate the results to indicate any level of general knowledge difference between the groups. In other words, they didn't even establish the correlation they claimed.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Maybe you should remember that any rules that would be used against Fox News could also be used against MS NBC or Pacifica Radio.....

Sorry, but it sounds just like "Free Speech For Me,But Not For Thee"

And, btw, I NEVER watch Fox News.

If you never watch it maybe you should check that tu quoque at the door.

I just looked at the examples in this link, 25 Examples of MSNBC Race-Baiting, Lies & Left-Wing Nonsense Show Why RNC is Banning the Network and pretty much they have a warped view of what a lie is.

Take this one: Signs You Don’t Get Real Life: MSNBC Suggests Men Who Love Jesus are ‘Homoerotic’. They left out the context of the discussion and the fact Dyson clearly followed that with, "I'm not saying that's true".

No one is saying MSNBC doesn't speak to a liberal audience. The issue is lying and deceit to do that, not having a political slant.

55% say MSNBC is not as bad as Fox. Probably a party line vote but this is a relevant comment:

Falisfying News Reports Fox went to court to falsify news reports and they're causing unnecessary hysteria and lies along with the fact that a study showed that people who watch fox are less informed than those who watch no news at all. So, fox is an abomination to the "news" stations out there and should be rid of.

 

[Ziggurat]

It is if taken internally.

Now I'm curious about how you would even do that.

Don't answer. On second thoughts, I don't want to know.

 

[MontagK505]

Where do you draw the line though between free press and the freedom to knowingly tell outright lies and call it news?

Have you seen the paid-for-anything-you-want-to-say news in India India: 'Paid news' scandal hits major newspapers

But the OP question wasn't, should it be allowed, the question was, is it harmful?

The first amendment allows news media to generally say whatever they want. Is the first amendment harmful?
Many years ago, I had the experience of observing an event first hand and then later reading about it in the newspaper. After that I regarded all news media as suspect with the potential of causing harm.

 

[MontagK505]

I find the idea that objective reporting and unbiased information transmission being generally rejected out-of-hand in preference for slanted and heavily biased reporting that doubles as marketing for a particular social agenda to be perverse and more truly Orwellian than all the mainstream news media sounding similar in their reporting of objective fact and information.

If it all sounds similar how do you know if it's objective and not output spewed from the "Ministry of Truth"?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The first amendment allows news media to generally say whatever they want. Is the first amendment harmful?
Many years ago, I had the experience of observing an event first hand and then later reading about it in the newspaper. After that I regarded all news media as suspect with the potential of causing harm.

The law says if the news media uses a VNR they have to disclose the fact it is paid for news.

I like how people blindly cite the First Amendment sans knowing the facts.

 

[Ladewig]

Did you look at the video news release disclosure law I cited?

No, I didn't because what I am talking about has nothing to do with prepackeged "news" reports.

I agree that sponsorship should be fully disclosed.

What I am saying is that freedom of the press means that a news agency can report the news any way they see fit.


Let's look at a more specific example. Many right-wing agencies in 2010 reported that President Obama's 10-day state visit to India would cost US taxpayers $200 million per day. These agencies cited figures including a 3000-person entourage and a fleet of 34 US warships. Should these agencies be penalized for purposely misleading people? The US agencies repeated the claim that was made by an Indian newspaper that was quoting an anonymous source. Is it a lie if they repeat something from the foreign press?

We're stuck with their hypocritical newscaster opinion interjections. Showing the hypocrisy in side by side clips makes for good comedy on the John Stewart show.

And that is the way freedom of the press should work. If one agency is torturing the statistics to make them tell one side of the story, then another agency can provide a more complete view of the story. And another news agency can distort the story as much as they like in the other direction.

If Fox News wants to say that B. Obama has performed an impeachable offense, then they are welcome to report that, just as Pacifica is welcome to report that G.W. Bush has committed an impeachable offense. ( I am merely surmising that Pacifica might do that - I stopped listening to that network after I heard a program host assert that 9/11 was an inside job.)

 

[DDWW]

Wrong Forum.

This is Economics, Business and Finance.
Fox News kills the competition.

I think you want the "Everything Republicans, Conservatives is wrong and Democrats, Liberals fart rainbows & Unicorns thread. In other words the political thread here.

Just trying to help!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

No, I didn't because what I am talking about has nothing to do with prepackeged "news" reports.

I agree that sponsorship should be fully disclosed. ...

The point is, the blanket claim there are no restrictions on free speech in the news is false.

I'm not talking about the opinion stuff, I'm talking about a license to purposefully lie and call it news. The idea there is no such thing as a line that could be crossed is not true.