Okay, forget about worrying whether or not the media is biased — we’ll have a hard enough time trying to figure out if they’re actually telling the truth or not that we won’t have to worry about bias.
On February 14, a Florida Appeals court ruled there is absolutely nothing illegal about lying, concealing or distorting information by a major press organization. The court reversed the \$425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information. The ruling basically declares it is technically not against any law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast.
I can kind of understand the court not wanting to get in the middle of this by actually declaring it illegal for a news broadcast to knowingly transmit false information — the accountability should be a responsibility of the news organization, otherwise what accountability do they have? What disgusts me is that Fox’s lawyers “argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves.” Just disgusting.
Bearing that in mind, though, I now have absolutely no desire to pay any attention to any news report coming from Fox Television. Pretty hard to trust an organization that would do this.