There was a legal incident involving Fox almost 20 years ago. People today grossly misinterpret this case by saying “Fox is designated as ‘entertainment’ by the FCC, not ‘news’” which is not true and not what happened. Indeed, IMO even Snopes gets the facts wrong on this one. Frankly, the TRUTH is far more nefarious: At its core it was a wrongful-termination suit, but it had larger implications. Fox News went to court with (and on behalf of) one of its local affiliates and essentially argued that there was no law or regulation requiring them to tell the truth. That they can say whatever they want, or withhold information that provides vital context (or may debunk) their claims. (The latter was actually the crux of the matter.) And that they can fire any journalist who pushes back against editorial decisions that alter or impede the truthfulness of a story.
I suppose then there could be a “Truth in Journalism” law enacted where for organisations of a certain size, the burden of proof is on them to prove they had a good faith reason to report the whole facts and context of a story.
I bet they’d hate that.
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Hannity’s annual income is $36 million.
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The problem with passing a law empowering the Executive Branch to punish organizations who promote misinformation is, remember who was the head of the Executive Branch a few weeks ago, and how he defined “fake news”?
I’m not sure how we can pass laws that restrict bad actors like Fox News that can’t be abused by people like Trump to punish their critics.
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