Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Fox News ā We donāt report so you donāt decide something we donāt want you to.
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thatās why W worked so hard to deregulate FFC and make them toothless
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And while all this was going on, the NYT was having daily orgasms over Hillaryās private server and e-mails.
We are so screwed as a country.
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I wonder if someone like Murdoch could at some point make the list. Would the First Amendment cover his propaganda machine if it were found deliberately to be aiding in conspiracy, obstruction, etc.? Attorney opinions?
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Time to re-institute the Fairness Doctrine.
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Iām interested in hearing this too.
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So Murdoch and others at Fox knew Trump was paying illegal hush money to known pornographers and they STILL wanted him to be president -and wanted it so bad that they would risk getting caught helping him in such a heavy handed and nefarious way.
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The Fairness Doctrine was effective at a time when what you had was control over broadcast spectrum (a shared and limited resource). Iām not sure how it can be reimplemented in the age of Internet web publishing without bending the First Amendment into unrecognizable shapes. Itās a debate we need to have, but banning Fox from the airwaves wonāt stop the vast majority of their audience from accessing them (although current trends towards a collapsing cable market can perhaps actually helpā¦)
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When she saw what was happening at Fox News, she should have given her reporting to someone at a reputable news organization who could follow up on it and get it published. Some things are more important than oneās career.
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The editor acknowledged that it was good reporting but spiked it anyway.
Fox could not give Trump a single free ad without triggering the rules around contributions. Their excuse for giving him free airtime and multiple infomercials was that they are a news organization exercising their news judgment. The decision to pull the Stormy story on the basis of politics pretty much outs paid to their claim to be a news organization. And if not, then that airtime and infomercials were definitely contributions.
If she wanted to do real reporting, I wonder why Fox hired her in the first placeā¦ I canāt imagine what they saw in her that would make them think she fit in with the rest of their news team.
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My not super-explicit point was that to determine it was a campaign contribution you have to establish with a level of certainty that satisfies the legal system a bunch of stuff about the story that was originally decided in the much more subjective world of journalism. Legit stories get spiked all the time for all kinds of reasons. And the guy who did it is dead. So there are some complications here a prosecutor would probably consider in making a decision about bringing charges. Iām asking if a prosecutor would jump for joy at the prospect of bringing a case that tends to complicate a publisherās First Amendment freedoms by defining a decision not to publish as a campaign contribution. Even if it were, which is probable, youāre asking for a lot of scrutiny and possible rejection on appeal just on the basic principles IMHO.
Unfortunately FOX isnāt the only network where youth and conventional attractiveness matter. I havenāt studied this but MSNBC seems notable to me in having on-air folks some of whom look like regular people. Now, a lot of the bimbo and mimbo types have the credentials to back it up (Falzone has a psych degree from the New School) but itās just one of those things about TV. Superficiality is a besetting problem for the medium.
Yes, butā¦ The only thing that stops Fox News from being a massive campaign contribution is the pretense they are a news organization. Said pretense is wearing remarkably thin.
Put another way, why should a series of free ads escape the consequences of providing just one?
In the real world prosecution wonāt happen and because of the 1st A considerations I probably wouldnāt want to see it either but it is still aggravating.
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Absolutely no doubt about that. Very aggravating because theyāre damaging the society. But Iām trepidatious about suggesting any policy remedies. You get into the utopian realm with that. Very often Iām left with nothing but proposing more critical thinking education in the schools. If weāre going to be an information society we need to get better at evaluating information.
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