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1. Fox went to court in Florida to defend the "right" to lie as news. They are the only news network to do so in the history of reporting.

Ironically, you're lying.

You're referring to the case New World Communications vs. Akre. WTVT is a local station in Tampa Bay owned by New World Communications (which is owned by News Corporation and thus is a Fox owned and operated station.) You note that WTVT isn't Fox News Channel, because you called it "Fox" in a discussion about "Fox News." Nice slight of hand. Jane Akre was a WTVT reporter who wanted to air a piece critical of Monsanto without giving Monsanto a chance to respond, and the WTVT brass turned her down. WTVT claims that the original piece that Akre submitted was biased and misleading, and so produced a new piece including a response from Monsanto. She and her then-husband, Steve Wilson, eventually had their employment contracts terminated without cause.

Akre and Wilson then sued New World under a Florida whistleblower law. They alleged that airing a piece with Monsanto's response would constitute a violation of the an FCC policy authorized under the Communications Act of 1933, and that they were fired for threatening to expose this violation of law. On the facts of whether including Monsanto's response constituted lying, a jury would rule dismiss all of their claims. A jury, in fact, ruled that New World wasn't lying.

The jury awarded Akre money because she thought she was acting as a whistleblower, and New World appealed THAT part of the ruling. In their appeal, New World said that the Florida whistleblower statue required the whistleblower to be reporting a violation of law, not a violation of FCC policy. This is a wildly different argument than "defending the right to lie."

The appeals court ruled that because the thing that Akre was going to report to the FCC on wasn't a "law" as required by the Florida whistleblower law, she was not protected by the whistleblower law. Because she wasn't protected by the whistleblower law, the appeals court overturned Akre's jury award without considering the merits of the case. (They did, however, note that the original jury overturned all of Akre and Wilson's claims about WTVT lying.)

The other interesting part of this is that nowhere in the court documents does either side advance anything about a "right to lie." New World never argued that they had one, and Akre never argued that WTVT claimed that they did in any formal document. Four years after the appeal ruling, Akre filed a complaint with the FCC that WTVT shouldn't have their license renewed. She didn't even claim anything about a right to lie then.

This site has a good overview of what happened in the Akre case:
http://www.campaignfreedom.org/2009/11/03/fox-lies-videotape-debunking-an-internet-myth/

So does Akre's Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre

This story is an urban legend that was spread to attack Fox News, but it was completely false. Thank you for not spreading it further.

First of all, you misspelled "Murdoch".

Secondly, the Supreme Court didn't "rule" anything of the sort.

1. It wasn't the Supreme Court.
2. That wasn't the ruling.
3. "FOX News" wasn't involved.

It was a 2003 ruling by a Florida appeals court dealing with a local network affiliate in Florida, WTVT, which happened to be a FOX affiliate. It had NOTHING to do with the Supreme Court, NOTHING to do with saying 'Fox News only had to have some "news" in their programming', and NOTHING to do with FOX News (the cable network channel). (Here's the background, if you care.)

Further still, NO opinion/op-ed/editorial shows on ANY of the 24/7 cable news networks can really be characterized as "news". There are precious few hours of strictly "news" programming on the cable news channels. Depending on your personal politics, you'll claim that some particular channels are worse than others -- and be no more or less correct than people at the other end of the spectrum making the opposite claims. (See also...)

Also funny is that you think that only "American news agencies" are beholden to profits and other interests, or that anything fundamental has really changed in the last 5, 10, 25, 50 or more years. What has changed is there is more editorial content and all the ridiculousness that the 24 hour news cycle has brought us...but more information, in more detail, is out there in a variety of sources -- INCLUDING the traditional print and television US "mainstream media" -- for those willing to look.

A truly dizzying array of completely incorrect information from someone who thinks they are informed...

First: It was a Florida court - the Florida 2nd District Court of Appeals, not the US Supreme Court.

Second: They NEVER argued that they had a "right to lie."

Third: The court NEVER affirmed that they had a "right to lie."

The 2 fired employees fired by Fox were suing for protection (and compensation for wrongful dismissal) under Florida's whistleblower protection statute, alleging that they were fired for "blowing the whistle" on Fox reporting something inaccurate or distorted. The appeals court (rightfully) said that an FCC regulation requiring news channels to "report truthfully," is not a LAW, and thus is not protected under the whistleblower law.

You should probably go read this long writeup before you continue parroting idiotic groupthink about "hurr durr fox says they have the right to lie."

Uh, yeah. We should trust a two-bit blog run by a heavy Romney-backer, supporter of voter suppression and global warming denier? You Fox apologists truly do live in your own reality.

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/mills.htm?csort=y
http://www.campaignfreedom.org/

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Before anyone starts jumping on Fox News for whatever axe they have to grind with them, please substitute Fox News with "CNN" or "MSNBC" and ask yourself if your vitriol would be just the same.

"CNN went to court and won the right to lie in news broadcasts"
"MSNBC went to court and won the right to lie in news broadcasts"

Nope, doesn't work.

Vitriol unchanged.

Jo_ham went on Slashdot to lie about Fox News.

Yeah, that's actually true.

See, the story you are talking about wasn't even FoxNews. It was a Fox affiliate in Florida. Next, neither FoxNews nor the affiliate ever argued for the right to lie. Here are the facts:

A reporter for a Fox affiliate in Florida did a hit piece on Monsanto. Fox decided not to air it. When they finally did air it, they wanted a response from Monsanto. Well, the reporter had a fit and refused to do the story if it included a Monsanto response. So, Fox did the right thing and fired her and her partner. Well, they sued trying to claim "whistle-blower" status, lost, and were then ordered to pay Fox's legal fees.

Where the "argued for the right to lie" bit comes in was from a person who is against GMO foods and hates Monsanto. He said that Monsonto's response to the store was a lie, so Fox was arguing for the right to lie. People picked it up and it spread, even though it wasn't the truth. The people like you heard it, believed it because it is what you WANTED to believe, and spreads it far and wide.

Jane Akre was the reporters name. Feel free to look it up. The report was on BGH (bovine growth hormone) that Akre and Wilson were saying had severe, negative health effects. Well, dairy farmers still use BGH, and this was over 12 years ago and most milk drinkers are not dead... so it appears that Akre and Wilson were wrong. They were actually the ones suing Fox to air a false report. It was them who went to court, arguing to lie.

HERE are the facts of the case.

Maybe according to the Huffington Post headline, but not according to the Judge in the case, nor the jury, nor the FCC. This constant horseshit is getting old. Can't we all agree Fox sucks without making shit up?

Background here

That'll be the Fox News that argued successfully that it had the constitutional right to lie to its viewers.

Strange. And here you are, lying, trying to say that FoxNews won a court case that it is OK to lie. Let me explain.

First, the report that was at the heart of the case was on a Fox affiliate, not FoxNews. However, Fox lawyers are also FoxNews lawyers, so you could possibly spin it to say FoxNews lawyers argued successfully...

Next, the case was not about lying at all. It was about a Fox affiliate (affiliate, the same group that shows "The Simpsons", not the channel that shows "The Factor with Bill OReilly") who fired a reporter who refused to air an edited story. The reporter thought the edits made the story false, so she refused to air it and was fired. Note who said the story was false. Not Fox, not the judge, but the person who was suing after losing her job.

From here:

Clearly, the story that FOX News got a court ruling in favor of its right to "lie" in its news broadcasts has become something of a talking point among the cable news channel's detractors. There's only one problem - the story as popularly told is completely false, and is based almost exclusively on hysteria, hyperbole, and half-truths.

There was indeed a lawsuit filed by journalists Jane Akre and Steve Wilson over their dismissal from FOX affiliate WTVT in Tampa, Florida. After that fact, however, the story is far different than how it is popularly portrayed.

To begin with, the popular portrayal almost always omits the rather crucial fact that Akre and Wilson lost almost every one of their claims at the trial court. As the Florida Second District Court of Appeal noted in their ruling:

Akre and Wilson sued WTVT alleging... that their terminations had been in retaliation for their resisting WTVT's attempts to distort or suppress the BGH story and for threatening to report the alleged news distortion to the FCC. Akre also brought claims for declaratory relief and for breach of contract. After a four-week trial, a jury found against Wilson on all of his claims. The trial court directed a verdict against Akre on her breach of contract claim, Akre abandoned her claim for declaratory relief, and the trial court let her whistle-blower claims go to the jury. The jury rejected all of Akre's claims except her claim that WTVT retaliated against her in response to her threat to disclose the alleged news distortion to the FCC.

So it wasn't that the court found that it's OK to lie. The court found AGAINST the claims that the edits made the story false.

But, hey! Let's not the the truth get in the way of your rant about FoxNews lying. It justifies your hatred beautifully. It would be a shame if you were to have to make up some other reason to hate FoxNews for presenting opinions that are not yours.

A precedent that doesn't exist. http://www.campaignfreedom.org/blog/detail/fox-lies-videotape-debunking-an-internet-myth

The case never questions whether Fox News attempted to coerce Jane Akre to report false information. The case deals with whether or not she and her husband were wrongfully terminating for threatening to file suit and alert the FCC that they had been coerced to lie, and falsify facts by Fox producers. The article I link to states the 1st amendment right to lie argument was never used because it was not needed. It's a defense to a complaint that wasn't made. (like Net Neutrality policy?) and the actual court papers support these claims. I'm not saying Fox News employees are guilty or innocent, but the fact this case was brought does not make Fox guilty of anything, secondly, the plaintiff's award being overturned on appeal doesn't substantiate the plaintiffs initial claims to begin with. The Spin stops here! Hehehe http://www.campaignfreedom.org/blog/detail/fox-lies-videotape-debunking-an-internet-myth

Let's be fair. That case dealt with whether on not Jane Akre and her husband Steven Wilson were terminated wrongfully for threatening to go to the FCC with claims they were being pressured to distort the news, not with whether or not they were actually asked to distort the news. Fox represents they never asked them to distort anything, and Fox felt that the report submitted was biased on behalf of Jane Akre and her husband. Court documents support this. I hope you can be fair: http://www.campaignfreedom.org/blog/detail/fox-lies-videotape-debunking-an-internet-myth Just one example I've come across. Even if I were to concede that these producers were actually trying to coerce these reporters into distorting the news,(No hard evidence I've seen points there. Circumstantial evidence might say that their claim hint of it), a few producers actions could hardly constitute policy of a major corporation. You would have to go alot further to establish a culture of this. Although I am defending Fox news in this instance, my initial post was not to defend Fox News but to say that bias and fairness are two different metrics. While related. 100% Bias does not equal 100% unfairness or vice versa. I saw alot of comments asserting that Fox is right wing therefore can't be subjective. I can love the Giants and hate Eagles and still officiate that game fairly.

he also played finance games as well

Be aware that Canada has some interesting challenges to freedom of speech with regards to the political process, including campaign finance limits (note the US has some too) and something about a media blackout of election coverage. There also exist certain "hate speech" provisions (for some criticism, do a quick Google search and/or see here here and here, warning, these sites may contain bias independent of their stance on freedom of speech... that's kind of the idea behind freedom of speech, though, so I hope you can cope).