More Daily Show v. Fox News

[David Holtzman]

Ok, maybe David is a troll, or maybe he is just adamant to his point.

I'm clearly trolling the constitution. That first amendment, always wrecking our plans!

Either way, I've made my point that stuff like Fox News is unhealthy, that it would be relatively easy to correct, and that the major problem is so called insistence on absolute free speech.

Eh, I'll grant you the first. Your "relatively easy" analysis dropped hard on several policy concerns. The third, yeah those human rights seriously get in the way.

[Alaris]

Relatively easy depends on how hard you come down on them.

Being unable to call themselves news or reporters if they can be shown to lie regularly (or at least report facts incorrectly), for example, would not change anything but their branding. They could say the same things as before for example.

You dismiss this solution on grounds that I find overzealous, and I don't feel like debating it further.

[raspberry jam]

1. They determine within strictly confined parameters. They do not do so in speech cases except for those rare exceptions I pointed out earlier. And no, it really really wouldn't. Cost shifting is a significant deterrent on bringing suits. That's why it's used in europe.

2. Reasonable doubt is the most difficult evidentiary burden to meet. Good luck proving a conspiracy, for example. No more watergate reporting for you. Are you willing to sacrifice investigative reporting in trade for more accuracy in general reporting?

6. Courts don't treat statements as true merely by their repetition. In any case, now that I have a rule allowing me to trust eyewitnesses, what's to stop me finding lying eyewitnesses so I can say what I wanted to say in the first place?

8. Go for it. I'm sure many a judge will be more than happy to kick your cases for lack of standing.

9. Er, check your logic on this one. If figurative language is necessary for human discourse, and news is a subset of human discourse, then figurative language is necessary for news.

10. Forget about lifting, you'd be able to flat make it up and attribute it to him. To prove defamation against a public figure you need not only show that something is untrue and harmful but also that it had malicious intent.

11. Of course there is: the Constitution of the United States.
Your theory being that if you contrive a scenario in which every possible safeguard fails that no safeguards will work? Forgive me if I don't hop on your circular reasoning train.

12. You are incorrect. According to your own statements, every piece of the narrative needs to be provably true via documentation. I defy you to write a compelling narrative in which you can do so.

14. This is the same rationalization that allows people to take quotes out of context. I thought that wasn't allowed?

15. It would be prohibitively expensive. So much so that even a minor mistake would bankrupt you. It would be impossible to operate a news station. This is simply prior restraint by financial means. I suddenly have a much greater appreciation for how things like the PATRIOT Act get passed.

17. Yes, that's nice. Now what does that have to do with your contention that somehow having advertisements means news programs automatically fail their duty to society?

18. Most of those have to do with duties at common law or regulatory duties. I'm not going to dissect them all for you.

1. Yeah, courts determine what happened. So just expand those parameters to cover news.

2. I don't see what you mean. It it's a conspiracy to commit a crime, it should be a matter for the police, not the press.

6. Correct, that's why I said "that a court would accept them as true". If a single police officer testifies against the statement of two other people, who does the court believe? What if it's five police officers?
And so on. Of course, general credibility and expert knowledge plays in as well.

8. No, you think about it in the wrong way. My idea would be that a news publisher would have to be able to prove that the news are true. The person filing the suit would not have to prove that the news are false.

9. lol what, no. Figurative speech being necessary for human discourse in general do not mean that it is necessary for every single instance of human discourse. For example, a document listing the standardized measurements for a CD (thickness, radius etc) is technically human discourse, but does not need any figurative speech.
Except that the measurements is a figure of a CD.

10. Yeah, but assume that Fox News claims that he said it right in the middle of a fragile diplomacy process with China. The Chinese thinks that black plesident hate them and they refuse the deal, so Obama lost. In a way. Would this be malicious intent?
Anyway, doesn't matter. Context should be included.

11. But the constitution doesn't prevent the majority from crushing the minority, at least not to any more degree than it would under my suggestion, since safeguards would still be safeguards. Therefore, your question presents a rather moot point.

12. There's been an earthquake in India. At least 116 people were killed in the earthquake. Most of the deaths occurred in Sikkim, with reports of fatalities in and near Singtam in the East Sikkim district. Several buildings collapsed in Gangtok. Eleven are reported dead in Nepal, including three killed when a wall collapsed in the British Embassy in Kathmandu. Elsewhere, structural damage occurred in Bangladesh, Bhutan, and across Tibet; another seven fatalities were confirmed in the latter region.
Source

14. I don't see what you mean. A meteorologist's notes about weather is certainly in-context when reporting weather conditions.

15. It would only be prohibitively expensive if you lie. Thus, I agree with you that most American news stations would have to close down. There would be others, though.
Oh so sorry that you'd have to report things that would be actually true lol.

17. Yes, of course. You still do not understand. It's in the interest of the populace to find out what is happening so that they can form informed opinions about it. I'm sure you agree. In other words, it is in the public interest that news stations be vessels for news. However, since the customers of the news stations are not the same as the consumers, it is not in the news stations' interest that they be vessels for news. In fact, it is in their interest - and that of their consumers - that they be vessels for ads.
Of course, news stations get viewers because people desire news. And ads needs viewers because otherwise they're useless. This means that they ought to publish news in order to attract people, right?
No, as always, appearances count for a lot. If there is something which appears to be news, and sometimes is news but sometimes not, and is more attractive to the news-seeking but unfortunately attention-span-challenged American mind, than actual news is, would it be in the news station's best interest to present that instead of actual news?
Yes, it's simple economics, just as it's economical for a food producer to put subpar ingredients into the food as long as the food appears to be made of high-grade ingredients.

18. lol instead of answering, you're running away. You should run faster, but there's no point; I will always catch up with you in the end. If they're free speech, why are they illegal?

[jmervyn]

News is whatever true thing that the news station wish to report. I'm just saying that if challenged, they have to prove that it's true - if they're not prepared to do that, they should not call it "news".

However, as David has previously pointed out, truth is frequently in the eye of the beholder. What I say on these forums is almost always true, yet y'all think I'm insanely dishonest because of your biases.

Yes, but only the latter part (corruption and misuse of public funds) is worth reporting.

Other people would disagree. Consider the "Bush choking on a pretzel" example, or any of the vast number of crap pieces run by the mainstream. They take a single instance of correlation and suddenly coffee causes cancer or some such.

EDIT - furthermore, for all those claiming FOX open dishonesty, my counter is that they're full of shyte because <ALL> media is dishonest. For every one of those stupid Soros claims that Alaris pulled out of the anus of the Internet, there's at least one more egregious example to be found from the Left.

Y'all are morons if you think that only FOX is angling the "infotainment" role of the media. CNN was the station that truly pioneered news-babe-rey, and as for reporting bias...

I'm having fun. And I'm defending free speech. All in all, this thread is a win for me.

I'm enjoying the fisking you're giving to someone else for a change. I'm surprised RD didn't double down on your defense of free speech as somehow unethical.

I'll defend free speech and even lying, but in its proper place.

In other words only from you and those aligned with you. I already knew that.

lol Based on the post layout, I'm kind of starting to wonder if David and J are the same person.

Just because your position was untenable is no reason to be bitter. I'm sure you'll do better next time.

FYI Declaring yourself the winner and attributing an emotion to other posters is something a certain other poster does quite a bit.

I suppose it comes from being called RAAACISSSTTT!! by another poster. One who probably is Leftist enough to believe the "only blacks are allowed to be racist" trope, which is why his calling me one is even more hilarious.

[Alaris]

What I say on these forums is almost always true

You forgot to add the disclaimer.

[raspberry jam]

However, as David has previously pointed out, truth is frequently in the eye of the beholder. What I say on these forums is almost always true, yet y'all think I'm insanely dishonest because of your biases.

But in reality, truth is truth, it's never in the eye of the beholder. If some guy robs a bank, he might claim that in reality he was at home, sleeping on his bed. Truth is that either he was, or all the people who saw him at the bank was right. Both versions can't be true.

Other people would disagree. Consider the "Bush choking on a pretzel" example, or any of the vast number of crap pieces run by the mainstream. They take a single instance of correlation and suddenly coffee causes cancer or some such.

But those stories are not worth running, I agree with you that it's ridiculous. Still, free speech and all, they should be allowed to run them - as long as they are true. Did he actually choke on a pretzel? Yes? Then by all means, run it. But don't sit there and go "lol he can't even do that right", at least not in the news studio.

EDIT - furthermore, for all those claiming FOX open dishonesty, my counter is that they're full of shyte because <ALL> media is dishonest.

I agree (on the last part), and say that it's a situation we need to correct.

Y'all are morons if you think that only FOX is angling the "infotainment" role of the media. CNN was the station that truly pioneered news-babe-rey, and as for reporting bias...

I'd need a caption to go with that photo. It looks like a war cemetery (judging by the exceptionally generic-looking crosses), but who are the people on the picture?

[jmervyn]

You forgot to add the disclaimer.

Well, at least you've found where you had left your sense of humor.

But in reality, truth is truth, it's never in the eye of the beholder. If some guy robs a bank, he might claim that in reality he was at home, sleeping on his bed. Truth is that either he was, or all the people who saw him at the bank was right. Both versions can't be true.

Nuh-uh. Obviously you can make strawmen for such claims - if the robber was gunned down at the bank, it's one matter, but if the cop-killer is allowed an appeal to majikal thinkers, suddenly there's no truth whatsoever in those accusations and anyone disagreeing is an EBIL RRRAAACIIIISSTT (warning - link chock-full of leftist tolerance). As another example, when Obama says that he has passed the "biggest middle class tax cut in history" and by 'biggest' he doesn't say that he really means probably applying to the largest number of recipients - is this truth? Most of you would scream YESS!!

Facts can be true, but that doesn't mean they aren't subject to interpretation.

But don't sit there and go "lol he can't even do that right", at least not in the news studio.

I forget, you don't see American TV. The "Stolen election" trope started before the 2000 count was even in.

I agree (on the last part), and say that it's a situation we need to correct.

I don't agree with your desire to correct it. What we should do is ensure that self-correcting mechanisms (like lawsuits) can't be corrupted by special interests. George Soros <was> a NSDAP flunkie and <is> an anti-Semitic megalomaniac, yet Glenn Beck was more or less fired for repeating Soros' own statements to a large audience.

I'd need a caption to go with that photo. It looks like a war cemetery (judging by the exceptionally generic-looking crosses), but who are the people on the picture?

LOL! Where has all the war protest gone? Buried, perhaps, in a neglected grave...

[Alaris]

I dunno about the other war protesters, but...

1) I protested Iraq because no evidence of WMDs.
2) Afganistan made more sense for Bin Laden.
3) Starting a war =/= continuing it.

Not current on Libya enough to comment.

[Giggles]

I completely agree with J here. Facts can and are manipulated all the time. What is truth is many times open to interpretation. You can't believe charts and statistics on face value often because they can and are skewed all the time by whomever produces them. Also, media is pretty trashy on the whole largely I'd say because of TV. It's been reduced to trill ride imagery and sound bytes for people with a 10 second attention span. You don't have great orators like we used to because of TV. Many people vote for the guy that looks good on screen, rather then the one that you think has the best ideas or the best vision.

[Alaris]

Is mesmer Queen growing a beard?

Also, the main reason why the media etc lies so much is because we not only let them, but encourage them by actually swallowing up their lies and buying in their agenda.

The more proactively anti-BS we are, the less the problem will be. The solution isn't in believing less in data and charts, but in asking for more proof and sources, and calling BS when it doesn't add up.