News providers are allowed to lie with impunity. Is there any good way to stop them?

[Aimless]

In another thread OG mentions the sad story of how two Fox reporters were fired for refusing to lie and then denied both compensation and protection under whistleblower-laws. I get it, speech should be free, and perhaps it's not whistleblowing when it's about despicable legal acts. But I don't like the notion of a news provider being allowed to use public airwaves to spread lies in the guise of truth any more than I like Creationists using public schools to do the same.

Can we think of any reasonable way to discourage newsmongers from deliberately lying? A way that doesn't automatically and instantaneously turn the entire western world into Russia or Italy? Can we at least find ways to protect those who refuse to lie?

[RandBlade]

I'd like to see the source of this discussion please.

[Ominous Gamer]

I'd like to see the source of this discussion please.

http://foxnewsboycott.com/resources/...n-lie-lawsuit/
URL should be warning enough for possible bias

[Aimless]

http://www.goldmanprize.org/node/65

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/1...o-why-so-pissy

haven't found a good one yet that details all the particulars of the case, but the most salient point i think is that newsmongers have a right to lie.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Can we think of any reasonable way to discourage newsmongers from deliberately lying? A way that doesn't automatically and instantaneously turn the entire western world into Russia or Italy? Can we at least find ways to protect those who refuse to lie?

A way would be the public being fed up with distortions news channels use to make it more sensational or more appealing to their target audience. It's also no use for a fact check like organization to name and shame the newschannels who do so, since you'll always run into the moronic argument "the other guys are doing it as well". And there's the whole problem. Those fact checkers should be the journalists, but when journalism has been downgraded as a means to push an agenda which isn't reporting or providing background, you want to check those who should do it in the first place.

[Enoch the Red]

In another thread OG mentions the sad story of how two Fox reporters were fired for refusing to lie and then denied both compensation and protection under whistleblower-laws. I get it, speech should be free, and perhaps it's not whistleblowing when it's about despicable legal acts. But I don't like the notion of a news provider being allowed to use public airwaves to spread lies in the guise of truth any more than I like Creationists using public schools to do the same.

Can we think of any reasonable way to discourage newsmongers from deliberately lying? A way that doesn't automatically and instantaneously turn the entire western world into Russia or Italy? Can we at least find ways to protect those who refuse to lie?

I'm more appalled by politicians being able to lie to me with impunity, and they are on my payroll.

[Lewkowski]

A way would be the public being fed up with distortions news channels use to make it more sensational or more appealing to their target audience. It's also no use for a fact check like organization to name and shame the newschannels who do so, since you'll always run into the moronic argument "the other guys are doing it as well". And there's the whole problem. Those fact checkers should be the journalists, but when journalism has been downgraded as a means to push an agenda which isn't reporting or providing background, you want to check those who should do it in the first place.

Journalism hasn't been downgraded as a means to push an agenda... it has always pushed an agenda.

[Nessus]

We have always been at war with Eurasia.

[LittleFuzzy]

http://www.goldmanprize.org/node/65

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/1...o-why-so-pissy

haven't found a good one yet that details all the particulars of the case, but the most salient point i think is that newsmongers have a right to lie.

The information provided so far in no way, shape, or form indicates that newsmongers have a right to lie. Everything I've seen amounts to FCC policies not qualifying for federal whistle-blower protection. That is something entirely different. Fox kept arguing they had a right to lie, and as far as I can find, no court ever accepted that argument.

[Illusions]

Journalism hasn't been downgraded as a means to push an agenda... it has always pushed an agenda.

You can push an agenda without outright lying and making stuff up, I think thats the part that has people pissed off the most, that a news agency will lie in order to push an agenda.

[Aimless]

The information provided so far in no way, shape, or form indicates that newsmongers have a right to lie. Everything I've seen amounts to FCC policies not qualifying for federal whistle-blower protection. That is something entirely different. Fox kept arguing they had a right to lie, and as far as I can find, no court ever accepted that argument.

aha, i thought their point was that you can't be protected by whistleblower laws unless you blew the whistle on something illegal (which is where the FCC's policies came in, ie. the policies aren't laws and blowing the whistle on Fox for going against those policies doesn't count).

[LittleFuzzy]

aha, i thought their point was that you can't be protected by whistleblower laws unless you blew the whistle on something illegal (which is where the FCC's policies came in, ie. the policies aren't laws and blowing the whistle on Fox for going against those policies doesn't count).

No. There's a whole lot of things which whistleblowing protection just doesn't cover, even with the expansions over the last decade. I don't know what specifically the laws and regulations have to say on the matter, but there certainly isn't a 1st amendment protection on mendacity.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Journalism hasn't been downgraded as a means to push an agenda... it has always pushed an agenda.

Read.

"Those fact checkers should be the journalists, but when journalism has been downgraded as a means to push an agenda which isn't reporting or providing background, you want to check those who should do it in the first place."

It's called a sentence.