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I don't have a JD and never went to law school, but I'm very interested in the particular field of media law. Atleast I went to school for Journalism, so I've got some media law and ethics backing, but I've had a nagging question that's bothered me for some time. We all have First Amendment rights in this country, the same standards apply to corporations, who are people according to the law. In the media industry we have, or used to have in any case, a good deal of ethical dilemmas when it came to reporting the news. The job of a journalist is to disseminate truth to the public for the greater good, but in a news world where scandal and hype and controversy guide the decisions of what editors should be running, I wonder if there is any legal precedent that deals with news organizations being charged with something along the lines of "harm to the public" or "malfeasance" or something similar to what a consumer might accuse a company of if their physical product was operating in a harmful and unintended way. Mainly I'd want to apply something like that to News Corp and FOX News in particular. You can't condemn FOX outright for running with the stories they run with, you can't even condemn Glenn Beck for saying what he says because we all have the right to say such things. What about the aftermath of what's being said though? Does FOX bear any responsibility to the public to work in an ethical context? What if some nut were to pick up a gun and shoot another person and claim that their crimes were motivated because of some anti-immigration screed he heard on the Glenn Beck show? Is news considered to be a product produced by a company? Would it stand up to the same consumer protections as a physical product? By FOX's own admission, it is not a news organization but instead is an entertainment/commentary channel motivated to get high ratings. Can FOX News even legally use the word "news" in their slogans and network moniker if this is the case? Dotcom Jillionaire fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Feb 12, 2010 |
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Feb 12, 2010 19:41
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| # ¿ Apr 20, 2024 15:06 |
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