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Fox News Considered Suing Fox's "The Simpsons"
ZeDanimal writes "The Simpsons' pooh-bah Matt Groening said in an NPR interview this week that the Fox News Channel considered legal action against the show for its parody of the station's news ticker. Broadcast, of course, by Fox Entertainment, the episode that raised the ire of the "Fair and Balanced" Fox News crew was Krusty For Congress, which mocked the perceived rightward-leanings of the channel with pseudo-news items such as "Do Democrats cause cancer?" and "Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple" scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Guess the powers-that-be learned something from the Al Franken affair... or maybe they just feared getting into a popularity contest with the likes of the inanimate carbon rod."
I heard that interview and Groening said that ultimately the parent corporation decided it did not want to sue itself. They did institute a new rule that the Simpsons, or any other non-news show on Fox, could not use an onscreen information scroll lest the audience become confused and think it was actual news.
fark linked in monday.
"The number of Unix installations has grown to ten, with more expected." (Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd ed.; june 1972)
I would not accuse Matt of lying, but perhaps of saying something that is not exactly true for comedic value.
While I cannot imagine Fox filing suit against themselves (as entertaining as Fox v. Fox would be to see on the docket), it is not unimaginable that they might file against Film Roman.
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
I haven't seen this particular episode, so I can't make a judgement on how realistic the news ticker looked. But in order to be legal parody, the mock version has to be significantly different enough so that an average person would know that it was a parody and not confuse it with the original.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Simpsons have been mocking FOX for years...
Here is "Fox Bashing List v1.7"
Fox News crew was Krusty For Congress, which mocked the perceived rightward-leanings of the channel with pseudo-news items such as "Do Democrats cause cancer?" and "Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple" scrolling across the bottom of the screen.
It's not percieved, the proof is here. This is a former producer for Fox's News Watch media show giving the dirt on how the bias comes down from Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes everyday in an email nicknamed "The Memo".
Expect to see more info as "The Memo" starts getting leaked. Fox is truly biased, the proof is in information like this. For more analysis, including a rebuttal from Fox, check this out. You might also want to read this commentary over at Editor & Publisher deconstructing Fox's spin on the latest "liberal media" salvo they fired.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
William Safire, the founding editor of the freaking National Review...
William Buckley (Jr.) founded National Review, not William Safire. Perhaps Buckley has written for the Times occasionally, but I don't think he's a frequent contributor.
ich muß mehr Kuhglocke haben
There's nothing wrong with a non-human entity bringing suit. Consider Burger King advertising "McNuggets taste like ass." What private citizen gets sued here? There is no Mr. King to sue. Our founding fathers would approve this suit, IMHO.
Liability doesn't always fall on private citizens. Corporate decisions are often made by shareholders' votes; the corporation has liability. CEO decision? again, corporate liability.
It is our right to have our grievances heard in court. Libel is often subjective, but we haven't even seen the start of a potential suit.
neopets.com
..the mock version has to be significantly different enough so that an average person would know that it was a parody and not confuse it with the original.
Well, to begin with, it was animated.
I grabbed a screenshot, here.
Now, would -ANYONE- confuse this with the real Fox News?
And the actual interview aired over a week ago on the 23rd. See here.
Bernie's book has been slammed for poor examples all over the place. His methodology doesn't wash. E.g.: He claims there are more references to 'conservatives' in pubs like NYT than 'liberal', as if calling them out. However, he doesn't check to see if the converse holds true in a conservative rag like the Wash. Times [one would assume so, if the bias is truly 'liberal'].
Check out the Daily Howler for details. And no, it's not a liberal website, but rather one that highlights ANYONE who is not shooting straight.
I'll be the first to agree that all news media has some bias. Some is more slanted than others. But PLEASE, don't use Bernie as a good example of this.
Who put this thing together? Me, that's who.
The founding fathers never wanted corporations to have the same rights as people. Actually, it was one of their biggest fears. They saw the british example and disliked it. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both believed that if Corporations were considered "Legal persons", it would be the end of democracy. Nevertheless...
In 1886, the court case of Santa Clara County v. the Southern Pacific Railroad established that corporations were indeed legal persons. It's been a fun ride ever since!
Actually no, it's gibberish. I have paused it on DVD at that frame in different episodes.
We can tell you're liberally biased, but what you just stated says nothing about how FNC is biased. You also left out the names of the admittedly liberal/democrat hosts they employ. Leave out that O'Reilly often criticizes both republicans and democrats, agrees with all different perspectives, and is always giving people time to speak.. When he does yell, he has a reason for it.. It's called, keeping morons from spewing incorrect/offtopic bs. Anyways, just because you want to believe republicans are always wrong and FNC is biased, doesn't make it so. Just because they don't say what you want them to, doesn't make them biased.
Slashdot's motto (emphasis mine):
News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.
This matters because:
It's a typo from whoever made the ASCII chart conversion.
Here's the actual thing. (Yoinked from a post below.)
My other SIG is a 9mm.
Your first link is mostly quoting claims by the White House, and doesn't even seem to be endorsing them as facts.
The second is an opinion piece and somehow manages to cite entirely irrelevant facts (what does firing missiles into Israel during the first Gulf war, which I remember pretty clearly, have to do with WMDs?) to support its conclusions.
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people.
The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda.
The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.
Stop being such a tool.
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right." -
As much as I love the Simpsons, Matt Groening isn't above threatening to sue people for stupid reasons.
The whole Illegal Art project is pretty neat.
Bunnyhole had to destroy an entire run of their magazine because Groening threw a hissy fit. This really annoys me because I love the Simpsons and Futurama. Especially the parodies.
It's fine for Groening to parody other people, but don't parody him.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
Now *that's* informative