Should there be laws against Media lies?

[Smith_3]

Some countries, for instance Venezuela, have laws stating that "Media are oblieged to tell the truth". With such a law, media people can be punished, if it is proven that they were spreading falsehood. I am not sure wether I think that is a good idea. What are the pros and cons of such a law? Obviously, in the states media are not bound to truth at all times.

[Angela Shelley]

1. Guten Morgen! Nice idea.

Let´s experiment ... let´s pass such a law for this forum first and see what happens.

[murielm99]

2. How 'bout we reinstate the Fairness Doctrine instead? n/t

[malaise]

3. Should there be laws against the

President lying?

[Angela Shelley]

5. That would solve one problem until the end of time ...

we would never have to have a president again!

[hfojvt]

4. TOBAL

There Oughta Be A Law

We have laws against libel and slander, but there is some sort of exception for public figures.

In our country there is also some sort of First National Amendment that starts with "Congress shall make no law ...

[KharmaTrain]

6. One Hell Of A Slippery Slope

I give people a lot more credit than I guess most around here do...when they hear or see bullshit they can tell it. They don't need us on DU or some talking head on the tube to tell us.

There are laws on the books about those who lie...it's called slander and libel laws. Unfortunately you can't legislate stupidity...or misinformation....only point it out.

Now how would you structure this law? Little lies get a small sentence...a big lie you go to prison? And who determines the "lie"...you? me? Fred Flinstone?

Don't believe what the corporate media says? Don't watch 'em...fortunately we all can be our own news directors these days.

[blondeatlast]

25. What you said.

:thumbsup:

[MonkeyFunk]

7. No

I don't want the government to decide what's "true".

[mmonk]

9. Our media is allied with this government.

That is already the case.

[MonkeyFunk]

10. so you want the government to be able to sanction

the media for not telling "the truth:"?

[mmonk]

11. No, I want separation.

With separation, they can't be bought through legislation like what has happened now.

[MonkeyFunk]

12. what, specifically, are you talking about?

[mmonk]

14. Allowing media conglomerates to exist without accountability

to the people. For example, how many people do you run into that know about the Office of Special plans, the Downing Street Memo, Sibel Edmonds, Bremer order # 39, etc.? In a country with a truly free press, wouldn't they know? Deregulation and favorable legislation for conglomerates to gobble up newspapers and broadcast media, ending the Fairness Doctrine, and access denial if journalists aren't favorable to the people in power all adds up to a press that doesn't serve as a fourth estate or a real free press.

[lildreamer316]

8. Fairness Doctrine n/t

[Warren Stupidity]

13. No. But broadcast media, using public airways,

should be put back under some sort of fairness doctrine requiring them to provide equal time for opposing viewpoints to their editorial positions. Strong rules against media consolidation should be resurrected and the current situation should be de-consolidated.

[warren pease]

26. Time to reinstate the corporate death penalty...

I'm really starting to like the idea of corporate charter revocation. Basically, if they consistently act like felons and their business practices routinely include befouling local ecosystems, clear-cutting, releasing toxic chemicals into the water, air or ground, screwing the community out of legitimate taxes, laying off half its workforce and replacing them with H-1b visa holders, moving some or all of its operations overseas and so on... If they're going to claim the privileges of "personhood," then they should damn well be subject to the same legal sanctions and criminal penalties any other person would incur for such behavior.

Or, more to the point in this thread, corporate death for giant holding companies buying up all the country's information outlets, replacing news with infotainment and propaganda and claiming First Amendment protections apply to broadcasting this nonstop drivel.

Just think for a second about which media outlets have pissed you off in the past week. I'll start with NBC for the Kucinich lockout, then CNN, Fux, CBS, ABC, the History Channel, the NYT, the WaPo, my local rag, AM radio motor mouths (for the three seconds it took to hit the mute button) and even ESPN. All of them peddled lies, distortions, disinformation, government-approved spin, told breathless tales of D-class celebrity idiots and engaged in actions harmful to the continued survival of the republic -- i.e., promoting and perpetuating the brain-dead culture of Dumbfuckistan. And that's just a normal week. The big six media conglomerates are also in probable violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, but that's another subject.

Media companies are particularly sensitive to charges of malfeasance, since they have a special obligation to be of service to the public in return for being allowed to use our priceless airwaves on the cheap or for free. To the extent that they ignore that mandate, they're vulnerable to charter review at the very least, and revocation if warranted. The FCC actually used to care about such things until St. Raygun deregulated everything he could find, a practice continued by all his successors, no exceptions, and reaching epic proportions with the Codpiece in Chief.

Obviously, it would take a new and fairly progressive administration to take on the GEs and Viacoms of the world -- one whose figurehead hasn't accepted massive bribes from those very same companies in return for favorable legislation and minimal regulatory oversight, and which the corrupt liars characterize as merely "buying access." Of the possible finalists, only Edwards seems to have any desire to take on these cancerous monsters. The GOP will remain worse than useless, Clinton and Obama are too heavily invested in corporate values and stuffed with corporate money to fight for the peasants against the oligarchs and Kucinich has been judged "unelectable" by people so much smarter than us that we really should just accept their word for it. :sarcasm:

So as usual, it's up to us, and we can decide pool our talents and combine skill sets and work to revoke their corporate charters. The rewards are huge. If successful, the corporation ceases to exist as a legal entity. You can then seize their liquid assets and divide them among the corporation's creditors -- which, in the case of a relatively solvent company, means the workers and contractors -- and auction off anything not nailed down, with proceeds again going to the workers and small creditors. The shareholders just lose their investments, the execs may or may not be subject to civil or criminal liability and when a new business moves in to occupy the old facilities, they're compelled to hire the former occupant's workers first.

I think it's long past time for people to begin harassing these unaccountable fiefdoms and either dissolve them entirely or cripple their ability to operate in secret and outside the laws and ethical constraints the rest of us are subject to. In fact, when I get a few spare hours, I'm going to work this stuff up into an OpEdNews or Online Journal article and see if I can draw a bit of attention to the issue.

Here's some background material. Unfortunately, successful revocation hasn't happened for decades, so there are no contemporary "how-to" case studies. But several of these links outline circumstances that could result charter revocation, along with citing precedents and legal arguments. Others contain the processes and templates needed to create the proper paperwork and get it into the hands of the right (i.e., more sympathetic) government officials. Fortunately, it's not as boring as it sounds.

http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2002/02oct-nov/oct-nov02corp1.html

http://www.duhc.org/rethinking_revoking.html

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Controlling_Corporations/ChallengeCorpRule_UNOCAL.html

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=1810

http://www.commondreams.org/scriptfiles/news2003/1230-02.htm

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/death_penalty.php

http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/corporatedeath103106.htm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheldon-drobny/the-best-use-of-the-death_b_21998.html

http://www.corporations.org/afd-paradigm-shift.html

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/cases/clcc.html?court=US&vol=173&invol=404


That's probably enough for starters. For more, search Google for any combination of "corporate charter revoke procedure case study"... and so on.

Happy hunting,


wp

[deacon]

15. We certainly have our share of propaganda in full swing for years now, something should be done. nt

[taterguy]

16. Leak some false information to a reporter so he's silenced by going to jail

Sounds like a great plan

[mmonk]

17. Or planted stories like the Iranian speed boats?

[annabanana]

19. how about KNOWINGLY lying?. . . . n/t

[taterguy]

22. Then you'd have the "I was too dumb to know any better" defense

And it's not like we should be encouraging stupidity amongst the press corps

[warren pease]

23. Which is certainly a valid defense in far too many cases...

The moron demographic is well-represented in corporate TV news and commentary, with such buffoons as Russert, Hannity, O'Reilly, Novak, Brooks, the AM radio motor mouths and the rest of those Nazi gasbags vying to out-dumb the competition every single day. And largely succeeding.


wp

[blondeatlast]

24. Or "I'm not a reporter, I'm an entertainer." nt

[warren pease]

28. Better yet, "on-air talent." Yup, that gets to the heart of the matter.

As a class, they're so abysmally stupid I'm amazed they can read their teleprompters. Next decade, they'll just grunt and show non-stop violent video in the lower left corner, with the crawlers covering about 2/3 of the rest of the screen and only the seriously brain-addled able to handle it all without imploding.

wp

[annabanana]

18. It used to be against the law to make false claims in advertising.

I think knowingly lying in something that is generally considered a "news" program ought to be actionable.

[mmonk]

20. Me too.

What the founders meant by a free press is a press that is allowed to criticize government action or officials without retribution.

[Echo In Light]

21. This crucial problem won't be addressed so long the people do nothing

And we all know from the past eight yrs that Americans are so astonishingly gullible, obedient and passive that they'll never take a stand against media/state collusion...hell, most wouldn't even know what that means, much less give a shit. If you explained it to them many would simply dismiss you as one of those "crazy conspiracy theorists" they've heard about.

It's an interesting phenomenon; most people will admit that politics and media are full of corrupt liars, yes, but when you delve into the specifics of it, it crosses a comfort boundary for many that they're unwilling to cross...or has the attention span to hold their interest - an unfortunate result of the systematic dumbing down a populace via sit coms, sports, light beer and American Gladiator. It's up to the wary to be the media!

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Media_control_propaganda/Media_Control.html

http://www.tbtmradio.com/geeklog/public_html/index.php

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=liberal+media+myth

[arthritisR_US]

27. Truth in the media...what a novel concept ;) n/t