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Here is one example. There are more.

http://www.foxbghsuit.com/oakh...

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07...

Fox news did show that news shows are not legally obligated to tell the truth http://www.foxbghsuit.com/. News team showed that Canada and other countries ban Bovine Growth Hormone. Monsanto didn't like that and pressured Fox to keep changing the story before release to the point the new story would have been a lie. Finally the news team quit and filed a whistleblower lawsuit. The whistleblower lawsuit was thrown out because Fox news was not guilty of breaking the law as the FCC has no rules requiring news to be the truth.

Check out "The World According to Monsanto" and "Food Inc". I also once looked into the bovine growth hormone issue. Anyway, you will find plenty of references and live interviews in the two specified movies. One reason why the US media does not cover the issue is because of corporate advertising issues (see the fox-bgh suit). Anyway, it is always worth tracking down the original sources from the listed movies, and assessing whether they have been represented accurately. I've done that myself, but that is something I cannot do for you. Enjoy.

The florida supreme court found that news stations don't have to tell the truth so reporters aren't protected by the whistleblower laws.

Strictly speaking, this is not what the court said. You're referring to the dispute over improper firing of two journalists, Wilson and Akre, that occurred in 2000. You can read the court opinion here. The irony here is that the widespread claim that "the courts have ruled that FOX News can lie" is itself disingenuous.

What the court is saying is: the FCC policy is not a law. The whistleblower statute only defends against breaches of law. Therefore, Akre is not entitled to compensation under the state's whistleblower statute. It's important to note that this is in keeping with the founding legal principle that Congress may not delegate law-making, except under very limited circumstances. Really, what the FCC's policy says is that intentional distortion of facts is discouraged, as FCC may revoke a station's license. This is in keeping with the idea that broadcast media must fulfill some public interest. But the FCC is not obligated to do this.

While I do think that there should be some tradeoff for journalists ("you get special protection from the government, so long as there is due diligence to get the facts straight"), I'm not really sure how one would enforce this. FOX, for instance, insists that Bill O'Reilly is part of their "opinion" segment, and while I do personally believe the guy is completely full of shit, and in general, damaging to the well-being of the country, I can't see a valid argument for preventing him from being on air. I think a truly free press is more important.

Why bother with things like facts? The Florida courts found that the ... 'FCC policy against falsification was not a "law, rule, or regulation"'. Sure this was for a Fox TV news affiliate but if it worked for one I'm sure it'll work for any other media.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_libel_laws

http://www.foxbghsuit.com/nyt060199.htm

Last but not least, the law itself:

http://law.justia.com/texas/codes/cp/004.00.000096.00.html

Because lying itself isn't against the law. Lying under certain circumstances, such as under oath in a court or fraudulently representing yourself in a business deal, is. The specific court case OP is referring to had to do with whistleblower status of two local Fox affiliate reporters who were fired for refusing to voluntarily redact claims made in an expose on rGBH hormones in cow milk. A replacement report was run that countered their claims.

link

The court found that the reporters were not eligible to be protected under whistleblower status because it is not against the law to lie on television and therefore they were not whistleblowing any crime.

There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that protection of the freedom of the press is taken very seriously in the USA. A law that created metrics for "truth" of reporting would be abused to silence reporters by government via self-censorship. The other reason the court didn't find the other way is because courts in the USA cannot find someone guilty ex-post-facto to established law, so even if this case made a point about lying on television, the court can't just up and make up a ruling and find Fox guilty. The court case was not about the legality of lying per-se.

This case was a terrible side-effect of legitimate concern for freedom of press in my opinion. Maybe there should be some sort of requirement for truth in reporting, I haven't thought about all the possible side effects or benefits of such legislation, so I'm not saying I think news organizations should be "allowed to lie" or anything like that.

Incompetents or liars, that's Fox News, take your pick.

There's no picking needed. It's liars, no questions asked.

Except when you don't pay that TV license fee (tax), then the BBC calls on the government to round you up and toss you in jail, or extract the funds from your paycheck.

lol!

That what it means to hold your own purse strings. The BBC doesn't beg the government for money, but raises their own taxes.

Not in the States. NPR and PBS sucks when it comes to news gathering since it was biased towards a statist regime (more/bigger government).

Scientific analysis disagrees. Perhaps you disagree with information provided by PBS/NPR, because it is critical of some of the corporate distortions being pushed by for-profit media.

I think it's telling that you believe PBS/NPR is pushing a pro-big government statist regime, when really they have no such agenda. One might believe they had such an agenda by contrasting their reporting to corporate media -- which has a very well established corporate bias, and is responsible for much conservative hysteria. Effectively, you've got a powerful elitist media manipulating the impressions and social discourse of the USA -- to suit their own private political agendas.

The only good news is that NPR/PBS only costs me about $10 a year in taxation

Yeah, corporate media is really expensive, isn't it. Exactly what is good about corporate media, when it's more costly, and sings to the tune of its corporate and political interests??

You may trust it, but (a) I don't trust the CBC, and I don't want something similar here;

The CBC isn't weened from the government purse.

and (b) I don't trust you to tell me who to trust.

I appreciate where you're coming from. Perhaps a little evidence is medicine. A systematic review of how well informed people are on WMDs in Iraq found:

The extent of Americans’ misperceptions vary significantly depending on their source of news. Those who receive most of their news from Fox News are more likely than average to have misperceptions. Those who receive most of their news from NPR or PBS are less likely to have misperceptions. These variations cannot simply be explained as a result of differences in the demographic characteristics of each audience, because these variations can also be found when comparing the demographic subgroups of each audience

There are many examples of deliberate propaganda in corporate media. For example, would you rely on corporate media to tell you about the cancer risk of milk farming techniques? Fox's official position was: it's not against the law to lie intentionally in a new broadcast. They were successful in the courts -- setting a precedent for blatant lying. Corporate media didn't bother to inform the public about there new power to make stuff up, but rather said that they were "vindicated" -- suggesting that there was nothing wrong with the milk farming techniques!

Interesting that corporate networks seem to be doing the majority of propagandising -- whether for the government or for fellow corporate citizens. A study of public vs for-profit news paints a dismal picture of for-profit news.

It's not that it's legal, it's that you're paying for the content, so you would have a higher expectation of getting a quality product.

People seem to be ignoring that if news gathering becomes a volunteer-only effort, we're going to get crappy, slanted news -- far worse than anything we see today. Anyone with an agenda is going to put "reporters" on the scene who will deliver precisely the message they want you to hear, dressed up as "news".

"Today an eight car pileup on the freeway left four people paralyzed. The four, who were insured through the Federal Government, had to wait an hour for an ambulance. The other four people, who were insured by Gekko, were rapidly whisked away to the hospital where they are recovering. Bob, how's the weather looking today?"

I'd rather have fairly obvious slant that might encourage people to think more critically about what is being presented. To me, that is far better than knowing that shit like this goes on under an appearance of legitimacy. It would be different if there were elements in the media that actively sought out and rooted out this kind of corruption, but there aren't -- those two reporters, as individuals, decided not to be intimidated, bribed, and silenced and that's the only reason why we know about this. It doesn't take much wisdom to know that most people would have caved. The questioning man wonders, for every example like that one that we do learn about, how many go on that we've never heard of, and of course under that assumed credibility that, as you point out, the established media commands? Say what you will of Internet bloggers and their political biases; they are unlikely to deliberately falsify a story in order to avoid losing Monsanto's ad revenue.

So, really, we need Press that isn't owned by the politicians that they are reporting on?

It's not so much that the press is owned by the politicians. It isn't. It's that both the press and the politicians are owned by similar (and sometimes identical) monied interests, many of which operate through various think tanks, front groups, and foundations because they have much to hide. Behind these fronts you often find various "old-money" families which are also openly active in politics. In that way, the aristocracy is alive and well in (North) America. In the cases where it is not outright ownership of the media, it is instead that the advertising-driven media could not survive for very long if it pissed off the deep pockets which purchase airtime.

Actually, the FOX lawyers repeatedly denied that the station ever pressured Ms. Akre to broadcast a false and misleading story in their court filings. They may or may not have made such arguments verbally in court. I haven't found copies of the transcripts. The relevant court filing is reproduced on a website run by a former news producer on behalf of Ms. Akre and Mr. Wilson: www.foxbghsuit.com/complaint.htm#RESPONSE

It repeatedly uses Fox's trademarked "fair and balanced" phrase, sometimes throwing in "accurate" for good measure. In paragraph 20, it explicitly denies that the station ever "ordered [Plaintiffs] to broadcast information they had demonstrated to be unfair, inaccurate, false and misleading."

This is a masterful piece of lawyerish weasel wording. The two reporters may have been ordered to broadcast information that is unfair. They may have been ordered to broadcast information that is inaccurate. They may have been ordered to broadcast information that is false. They may have been ordered to broadcast information that is misleading. But at no time were they ordered to broadcast information that is simultaneously unfair, inaccurate, false and misleading. Isn't it fun how one little word can make a statement strictly, legally true, while serving to convey precisely the wrong impression to a careless reader? This clever piece of legal judo is repeated again in paragraph 28, where they deny that the "Defendant ever ordered Plaintiffs to broadcast material known to be false and misleading..." Once again, they slip in the word 'and.' It might be argued that it's impossible for any material to be both false and misleading. The definition of misleading includes an assumption of some element of truth, utilized in a manner meant to give the wrong impression. False things, on the other hand, have no element of truth in them at all.

Regardless, it's a denial.

Now, did they argue that the FCC has no rule against distorting news? Oh yes, they did.

In paragraph 60, they wrote:

Defendant ... denies that the FCC has any rules or regulations regarding "rigging and slanting of the news..."

It doesn't get any clearer than that. They think can do anything they want and nobody can tell them otherwise.

Their arrogance and sense of entitlement shows up elsewhere too. There are two paragraphs that reveal FOX's attitude about how to go about producing their content. Paragraph 32 says:

Defendant admits that its attorney, Ms Forrest, advised Plaintiffs that Defendant's internal standard for accuracy demanded that any statements in a broadcast report challenged by suit be provably true on a motion for summary judgment and that Plaintiffs' continued insistence on including language in their report that would fail this standard was unacceptable and exposed Defendant to unnecessarily risky and expensive litigation.

This statement contains bizarre phrasing alluding to a circumstance that never existed: the report on recombinant bovine growth hormone was never broadcast, and therefore could not possibly have been challenged by suit. I don't even know what that sentence is supposed to mean. It certainly ends with a clear meaning though. Fox News content does not have to be true, but it can't expose Fox, in Fox's own opinion of exposure, to risky and expensive litigation from corporations with deep pockets like Monsanto.

Paragraph 28 says:

Defendant specifically admits that Mr. Boylan said the company had paid $3 billion for a group of ten stations, and the company was entitled to set up the pre-broadcast review process it chose and that, until Plaintiff Wilson owned his own station, he must follow Defendant's procedures.

I suppose that's reasonable, but it's amazing how snide it still sounds, even when being quoted by a lawyer in a legal filing. That was p

I didn't cite it, because I even though I waste time reading /., I don't keep newspaper clippings in my back pocket. Although, I guess requesting bigger proof than my own conjecture is prudent.

I only scanned these before posting them. I googled for "milk fox news court".
I may have first heard about it in the movie "the corporation" (more than 1/2 way through) but I can't be sure.

http://www.foxbghsuit.com/
http://www.everything2.com/title/FOX%2520News
http://www.organicconsumers.org/rbgh/fox-news.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto
http://www.netfeed.com/~jhill/RupertMurdoch.htm

We call it "Faux" news because it is. Learn this: Fox went to court and defended its right to knowingly broadcast untruth as news because the law does not specifically say they can't. Again, in case you still don't get it: Fox defended its right to broadcast lies that they knew were lies.

And that, among other reasons*, is why it is "faux".

http://www.2dca.org/opinion/February%2014,%202003/2D01-529.pdf

http://www.foxbghsuit.com/

* blending opinion with news and calling it objective putting only one political view on the air and calling themselves "balanced" reporting as factual news (and almost verbatim) the "talking points" released by the GOP

We call it "Faux" news because it is. Learn this: Fox went to court and defended its right to knowingly broadcast untruth as news because the law does not specifically say they can't. Again, in case you still don't get it: Fox defended its right to broadcast lies that they knew were lies.

And that, among other reasons*, is why it is "faux".

http://www.2dca.org/opinion/February%2014,%202003/2D01-529.pdf

http://www.foxbghsuit.com/

* blending opinion with news and calling it objective
    putting only one political view on the air and calling themselves "balanced"
    reporting as factual news (and almost verbatim) the "talking points" released by the GOP

Because Fox News went to court and argued that they could knowingly distribute false information as news because the law doesn't explicitly forbid it. Let me repeat that: knowingly report falsehood as news.

Note that Fox did not deny they were falsifying the news story on BGH; they argued only that what they did was not covered by the "adopted rule" of the FCC. A purely technical legal argument to defend broadcasting information they intentionally distorted and knew was wrong.

And that is a new organization?

http://www.foxbghsuit.com/

http://www.2dca.org/opinion/February%2014,%202003/2D01-529.pdf

Some reporters at fox news found strong evidence that the Monsanto BGH hormone to make cow's produce more milk was pushed through too quickly. They tried to report on it, Monsanto threatened to sue. Fox pulled the report before the air and set about having their reporters change the story. Finally the reporters were told to lie outright, they refused. Hilarity followed with the courts ruling that corporate media has no legal obligation to tell the truth.

There has been ongoing lawsuit coverage and other related issues.

Monsanto reminds me of the Ag firm in the Clooney movie Michael Clayton .

What you will see is offspring of clones, and milk products from clones. You'll be seeing both without mandatory markings.

In their legal filings FOX argued that they had the right to fill their news with outright lies. That's a little bit different than what the court ruled so instead of citing the ruling many reports say something to the effect of, "FOX won a lawsuit by arguing they could tell outright lies in the news."

The background on the story is somewhat interesting. The reporters investigated a story about rBGH. They had it all ready to air when Monsanto found out about it. Monsanto contacted FOX and threatened to pull their ads if the story went forth. FOX responded by ordering the reporters to effectively report the opposite of the truth. The reporters refused and threatened to report the station to the FCC. The station responded by firing them.

The plaintiffs used to have a web site up detailing the issue but I can't find it right now (they may have taken it down). IIRC, FOX went ahead and aired the fake story anyway (which was unrelated to the lawsuit).

years ago Monsanto actually got Fox News to kill a story about the adverse effects of BGH (Bovine Growth Hormone) in Humans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axU9ngbTxKw

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&sa=X&o i=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=monsanto+BGH+fox +news&spell=1

http://www.foxbghsuit.com/

the reporters got shit canned for it and Monsanto protected their bottom line.

Milk is very bad for you with all this BGH in it.

Causes Cancer.

As someone who worked in Florida local media (WTSP-TV in St. Pete), I can tell you that Florida media completely ignores stories of magnitude and focuses on the retarded, weird shit.

Have you heard about how Fox News WTVT (Ch 13) tried to squash news about the health risks Monsanto's BGH, bovine growth hormone, has? A husband and wife team of reporters spent months talking to ranchers, healthcare workers, and scientists about BGH. They were about to air the report when Monsanto called Fox and wanted to review and approve the story first. Seeing as how Monsanto's a big advertizer they got their way. But the reporters refused to let the company edit it so they were fired. Taking the firing to court they sued Fox and eventually won.

If you take the view that freedom of speech is a right given to individuals and not to corporations, and that in exchange for letting them use the airwaves, broadcasters have a duty to present the news in as balanced a way as possible, then something like the fairness doctrine isn't a violation of the first amendment and might even be (if you believe that the ensuing view presented will be more balanced in any sense) a good thing. What I would like, though, is for the FCC's policy against the falsification of news to be made into law so that people like this can claim whistle blower status when broadcasters do blatantly lie (which I consider worse than not giving every side of a story).

Since you mentioned that evil, "Fox News," you may be interested in a case where a legal case the judge found in favor of Fox for lying - stating that it was OK for Fox to lie publicly. Truly representative of how abysmal this sorry country has become.

That "clear editorial wall" doesn't seem to be working very well. Consider the case of two reporters who were fired for refusing to tell outright lies to support one of their biggest customers. Fox won the case by arguing that they had a first amendment right to lie to their viewers.

Have you seen any coverage of free-trade protests? Do you have any clue why people are protesting? If you do, you certainly didn't read it in a mainstream newspaper. Their 20+ biggest customers are all lobbying for more "free-trade treaties". Instead of providing unbiased coverage, they report on the half-dozen people who were arrested for throwing bottles or knocking over news stands. At the same time, they report nothing of the message that tens of thousands of peaceful protesters are trying to spread.

When is the last time you saw an old mainstream newspaper report honestly on proposed copyright legislation? They, and many of their customers, have a vested interest in copyright law.

And don't tell me every major media outlet independently decided the XBox 360 was the most important news story of the pre-Christmas shopping season.

Why would it have to be any different at Wikipedia?

Many people have this crazy idea that when they watch television, read a magazine, buy a newspaper, they are the customer. The media make most of their money from advertising. When you watch television, read a magazine or buy a newspaper, you are not the customer. You are the product!. The customers are the companies that buy advertisements. The same advertisements that keep the media in business. Articles, stories, and television shows are loss leaders. They attract your attention. The media then sell your attention to advertisers.

Wikipedia should be different because the content is the product.

That assertion gave way to an aggressive business maneuver by Monsanto that may have been enough in itself to turn a milk glutton into a vegan.

The biotechnology giant used the fact that there's no way to distinguish BGH-enhanced milk as a way to prevent non-users from labeling their milk, claiming there is no way to verify it.
Gary Barton, Monsanto's spokesman, denied it. "There's a total misperception that we're against labeling," he said.

More precisely, it's what the labels often don't say that rattles Monsanto. "No BGH-added" by itself on a milk carton is enough to send the company into a tizzy of threats and lawsuits.

tux could prevent the dairy farmers from injecting the cows with massive amounts of BGH (bovine growth hormone) then we'd be sittin' in butter.

better yet, if fox news could stop sueing its reporters from bringing this story to the public's attention, that'd be even better. http://www.foxbghsuit.com/

it's rather funny, the judge said in effect that fox doesn't have to tell the truth. and we wonder why people like Bernard Goldberg keep harping on about "bias".

http://www.google.com/search?q=there+is+no+rule+ag ainst+distorting+or+falsifying+the+news+in+the+Uni ted+States

follow the google link above for more info.

Fox is the company that won a lawsuit on the grounds that they had the right to tell outright lies in their news broadcasts. I don't think you will be seeing a meaningful or worthwhile response from them.

FoxNews is a company, as a media conglomerate they exist on advertising.

Fox News will also pull, change, or cancel a news story if an advertizer doesn't like it. One Fox station fired two reporters because they wouldn't change a story to suit an advertizer.

Hidden Danger in Your Milk?

Welcome to the online news source for anyone who drinks milk or consumes other dairy products...and depends on the news media to report suspected health concerns accurately and honestly.

Here you will find behind-the-scenes details about how a large share of America's milk supply has quietly become adulterated with the effects of a synthetic hormone (bovine growth hormone, or BGH) secretly injected into cows...and how pressure from the hormone maker Monsanto led Fox TV to fire two of its award-winning reporters and sweep under the rug much of what they discovered but were never allowed to broadcast.

Clearly you're not trolling - you make a salient point - Funding must come from somewhere (hell it's obvious that the viewers resent paying for anything).

So the money comes from commercial concerns and the next thing you know the channel is covering up reports on dangerous products in order to defend a large commercial interest

(the extra channels, are, I believe, not funded from the license fee)

This is correct, however see my post above and note why the licence fee allows the BBC to be free of financial pressure from the likes of advertisers who may put pressure on them financially through withdrawal of funds.

For a real life example of a news channel acting unethically because of commercial concerns, see here. Synopsis: two reporters for a Fox News sub reported on a Monsanto product with serious health issues and were subsequently fired. The ensuing legal cases brought to light the fact that there is no law on the statute books (in the US at least) which censures news channels for lying outright (or technically, concealing the truth). It's a complex issue with many sides but I think it fits the point that commercially funded media has an inherent bias which can be harmful. Government funded stations have no such requirement.

Didn't fox argue that you do need to tell the truth in the news anymore. The original article and a site about it.

*shrug* I Could of listed off all the countries as well, but it would seem like I was trying scoreboard by who went to the most countries. I can only assume when you mean living you never actually bothered to check into more about the country you were living in.

Full of shit? Hardly. UK for example, Stories about the royal family (eg. Charles gay incident) and Blair (eg. childs suicide bid) are routinely censored despite the tabloid nature of the press there.

Ireland censors stories too. For example electronic voting was cancelled in Ireland because it couldn't be proven to be reliable. What wasn't reported about (but mentioned in a dail hearing) was that the company that won the contract to supply the machines was an ex member of the current party in government who won the contract which was millions over expected cost, not the cheapest quote and the company only existed a few months after it was announced they were going to use the machines.

". The USA has the free-est press in the world, full stop."

Any press reporter asking the president a question he doesn't like and they won't be invited back or allowed ask a question again.

In some cases it even gets petty like Bush being interviewed by RTE who went on to tell RTE they would never be allowed interview Bush or anyone again because he was asked a question he couldn't answer.

"I repeat: PRISON."

I REPEAT *DIFFERENT WAYS*.

Just because you don't get thrown into prison doesn't mean you can't be screwed over in the US for reporting something that the administration or media don't want you to. The same applies for other countries as well.

The US is the only country I know where a News Channel can sue for the right to lie and win.

"literally millions of alternatives out there and at the end of the day you're welcome to start your own blog and report what you will."

Having alternatives doesn't mean that your press is free. Generally the alternatives you speak about are outside of the country in question. As for blogs, they are hardly media outlets. Certainly a place to start researching a story for yourself but I wouldn't put them that far above say Fox as reliable sources of information.

Here you will find behind-the-scenes details about how a large share of America's milk supply has quietly become adulterated with the effects of a synthetic hormone (bovine growth hormone, or BGH) secretly injected into cows ... and how pressure from the hormone maker Monsanto led Fox TV to fire two of its award-winning reporters and sweep under the rug much of what they discovered but were never allowed to broadcast.

After a five-week trial and six hours of deliberation which ended August 18, 2000, a Florida state court jury unanimously determined that Fox "acted intentionally and deliberately to falsify or distort the plaintiffs' news reporting on BGH." In that decision, the jury also found that Jane's threat to blow the whistle on Fox's misconduct to the FCC was the sole reason for the termination... and the jury awarded $425,000 in damages which makes her eligible to apply for reimbursement for all court costs, expenses and legal fees.

Fox appealed and prevailed February 14, 2003 when an appeals court issued a ruling reversing the jury, accepting a defense argument that had been rejected by three other judges on at least six separate occasions. CLICK HERE for more details on latest ruling. CLICK HERE to view how Fox13 reported the ruling.

The whistle-blowing journalists, twice refused Fox offers of big-money deals to keep quiet about what they knew, filed their landmark lawsuit April 2, 1998 and survived three Fox efforts to have their case summarily dismissed. It is the first time journalists have used a whistleblower law to seek a legal remedy for being fired by for refusing to distort the news. Steve and Jane are now considering an appeal to the Florida state Supreme Court.

So, whether this was done on purpose or accidentally, from a legal perspective it matters little.

Can you prove me wrong

Sure I can prove you wrong, but you should search the net as well. The top 5 media corps in the US came to the defence of FOX when the whistle blowers had collected enough evidence to go to court. I guess a favourable decision would enable all of them to lie with impunity, so it was in their best interest.

The story has been covered by many small media outlets, but unfortunately they get branded as "liberal crap", so people don't listen. Not all small media outlets are liberal crap, but there are enough for the effect to work. I guess you could characterise it as a type of social engineering, but I think it's just a bunch of smart marketers and image makers manipulating widely held social opinions... that's how they have gotten away with it for so long!

Have a good look around www.foxbghsuit.com, and you will a lot of information on the conspiracy, including how supermarkets have sidelined the problem, regulators have sided with Monsanto, and the consumer/public interest is not even considered. For example, a university study found that 80% of people were concerned as to unknown long-term health problems of using growth hormones in milk. Monsanto's response was to make it illegal for farmers/super-markets to label milk products as containing rBGH.

Monsanto offered 2 million to Canada Health to rubber stamp the product (rBGH) without further testing. The people in the room characterized the act as a bribe, however, Monsanto went on the record that it was for research. Makes you wonder exactly why the FDA only tested 100 or so rats, and only in a limited way... perhaps a research grant was invovled.

So the FDA doesn't want this talked about because it would be very embarrassing to have an inquiry into why they aren't doing their job. Monsanto is making $$$ of this product, which is really a mass trial of genetic engineering on the US public. (rBGH is a genetically engineered Bovine Growth Hormone)

Health concern over IGF-1 aside (that's the particular compound (hormone I think) which is know to be carcinogenic), Monsanto has fought to make sure that consumers don't know if the milk they buy contains this genetically engineered compound. Consumer may want to know what they are... consuming... but instead of regulators forcing producers to label milk as containing a genetically engineered hormone the exact opposite happened. It is illegal for producers to say that their product doesn't contain rBGH. Two farms were served law suits because of this, and warning letters were sent to other farms. I guess the farmers (serfs) saw the writing on the wall and backed down. Why did regulators allow/do this? You have to ask them yourself, but that's what happened. If we are known by are actions (and I believe we are), then the regulators do not have the consumers interests ahead of Monsantos.

Now most US farmers are using rBGH, to stay competitive. Various retailers (remember that a few corps own all the retailers, and central office sets the policies) have rBGH policies, but they are carefully worded so as to be ambiguous. The reality is that milk from producers is usually mixed, so that pretty much all milk contains rBGH.

So the retailers don't want it talked about.

Now the press is responsible for informing the public right?? Well the scary part is that there are 6 (I think) major US media crops that pretty much control most of it... they all sided with FOX in suppressing this story. The reasons why they'd do this is sketchy, but the proof is there. None of them picked up the story, and they all came to the aid of FOX in the court case _and_ the appeal. Legally, by precedent, they can lie, and have limited the whistle blowers act, which is good for business. Maybe Monsanto paid them off, or maybe the major corps have a 'club'... who knows. We can only guess at that particular motive. But the facts are there for those who care to find them... and the implications are... that major co

Download the 3-part documentary "The Corporation", it has a lot of info about Monsanto, the FDA and FOX. You can here 1st hand from the people whose voice was squashed, and it will make perfect sense how such a big story was squashed.

Also, check out this webpage.

I suspect you could easily swap "right-wing" for "leftist" and be just as correct: the media is amorphous and populist; it'll promote certain stories to sell newspapers, even if those stories are not in the interest of the proprietor or shareholders.

Not bloody likely; at least not in the US. The concentration of media ownership by giant corporations like Westinghouse, Fox, Disney and GE, pretty much guarantees that they won't allow leftist slant because it'd be bad for their shareholders. Heck, they're legally bound to do what's best for their shareholders, and they're NOT legally bound to tell the truth.
This on top of several of these large corps being major donors to the GOP, and corps like GE also happen to be weapons manufacturers; the outlook is rather bleak.

(That link is about a lawsuit where reporters sued a Fox station that fired them for not covering up a story. They originally won the suit, but the verdict was overturned since Fox was not legally required to report the truth.)

FWIW, Fox news is legally allowed to "report" lies or distortions as news in Florida, at least.

Fox LESS vilified than CNN? WTF mate?

Fox argued in court for the RIGHT to LIE in their "news" on 1st amendment grounds. They claim that there's not a law stating that they can't lie to the public.

Click here for more.

At least the big news companies can be sued for libel/slander if caught outright lying.

Technically you wouldn't be able to sue over libel/slander unless they "fabricated" a news story about you. But regardless you're going to have a really hard time beating any major corporation in a law suit.

These two reporters (http://www.foxbghsuit.com ) tried to sue Fox News over a falsified news story. They had a good case too, but Fox won in the end. How? The appeals court decided that "lying" in a news story, technically isn't against the law.

Fox went to court over the issue of whether a news organization had the right to lie or distort news stories under the First Amendment. Fox won in the end, at the third or fourth attempt. This blew up over a reporter Jane Akre, who argued that her bosses at Fox had pressured her to change a story about the effect of some hormone treatment on cattle - her report was to say that milk from these cows was dangerous for humans. There is a link to the story here. This is why people say that Fox isn't about news.

I don't mean to troll, but you should work on your web search skills. I found this, a newscast report from fox13 itself here, then there's a support site here... aw hell, just take a look at my page of search returns here.

I don't mean to troll, but you should work on your web search skills. I found this, a newscast report from fox13 itself here, then there's a support site here... aw hell, just take a look at my page of search returns here.

Here are some links, found by looking for the reporter's name

• Tallahassee Democrat
• Orlando Sentinal, (last item)
• PDF of the court Ruling
• Lawsuit Website, with a link to video report by TV station of their victory.
• Information clearing house
• Info on video network.com

Part of the resistance is that the US is refusing to label such food and allow people to make a choice about whether they eat hormone-treated or GM foods. The European consumer has shown that they want to know these things - that the US is refusing to do so is both arrogant and misguided. Indeed inside the US, there has been pressure for BST-treated milk to be labelled, the companies have refused. Why shouldn't we be given a choice what we eat and drink?

If the food is better, it will succeed in the market.

What's the big deal? Health organizations were all over this, have scrutinized it, and I can guarantee you (I know people that work in the medical industry) that the FDA is unbelivably uptight about letting *anything* past them if there's even the remotest unfounded possibility that something might have some risk to it. The only reason *not* to eat improved food is because of some irrational gut emotional response.

The problem is that people who work in industry have then taken up positions on the regulatory bodies that are meant to produce independent advice on the safety of these products.

For instance Margaret Miller wrote most of the FDA's regulations on why BST-treated milk would not be labelled, but she was a member of the team at Monsanto which had developed BST. Additionally, Dr Nick Weber of the FDA who had been negotiating with international regulators had passed confidential committee information to Monsanto.

This cannot be considered as satisfactory regulation. All the science in the World will not save you from corruption - and this is nothing more than corruption.

Finally, you have to remember that Europe has many small farms many of which rely on organic production methods. Any GM planting in Europe would result in cross-pollenation between GM and non-GM produce. People would end up eating GM food whether they liked it or not.

I thought the market was all about choice?

Best wishes,
Mike.

Scary. What other stories get killed before we get to see them?