They didn't sue for the right to tell liberals anything. They sued for the right to LIE in their news stories.
Spam, once again, is LYING.
Variations of the story abound on the internet. Here are excerpts from one that is fairly representative of the general charge:
The Media Can Legally Lie
By Mike Gaddy
In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with an assertion by FOX News that there is no rule against distorting or falsifying the news in the United States.
Back in December of 1996, Jane Akre and her husband, Steve Wilson, were hired by [FOX affiliate and owned station]… WTVT in Tampa Bay, Florida. In 1997 the team began work on a story about bovine growth hormone (BGH), a controversial substance manufactured by Monsanto Corporation…
According to Akre and Wilson, the station… wanted the reporters to use statements from Monsanto representatives that the reporters knew were false and to make other revisions to the story that were in direct conflict with the facts. Fox editors then tried to force Akre and Wilson to continue to produce the distorted story. When they refused and threatened to report Fox’s actions to the FCC, they were both fired.
. Fox attorneys did not dispute Akre’s claim that they pressured her to broadcast a false story, they simply maintained that it was their right to do so.
Other sites report the tale with similar outrage. A sample:
Fox News Wins Lawsuit To Misinform Public – Seriously
Six years ago, Fox News successfully argued in court that it had a constitutional right to report lies
Fox News Has a First Amendment”right to lie”- Updated
Needless to say, those who are not fans of FOX have quickly seized upon this story to bolster the idea that FOX is somehow less than a “legitimate” news organization. After all, what kind of news organization would go to court to protect the”right to lie”to their audience?
For example,
reader comments on a recent article at the Huffington Post on the Obama/FOX controversy include multiple references to the story:
“FOX News went to Court, to Sue for the”right to lie”to their viewers.”
“A court in Florida… ruled that Fox was allowed to spread false propaganda on their Fox channels.”
“Fox news is on record in court stating that they lie in their content. Their chief counsel admits this and says so what. It doesn’t matter that we lie and obfuscate as a matter of course in our fake news company. The judge in Florida of course agreed this was fine…”
Clearly, the story that FOX News got a court ruling in favor of its right to “lie” in its news broadcasts has become something of a talking point among the cable news channel’s detractors. There’s only one problem – the story as popularly told is completely false, and is based almost exclusively on hysteria, hyperbole, and half-truths.
There was indeed a lawsuit filed by journalists Jane Akre and Steve Wilson over their dismissal from FOX affiliate WTVT in Tampa, Florida. After that fact, however, the story is far different than how it is popularly portrayed.
To begin with, the popular portrayal almost always omits the rather crucial fact that Akre and Wilson lost almost every one of their claims at the trial court. As the
Florida Second District Court of Appeal noted in their ruling:
Akre and Wilson sued WTVT alleging… that their terminations had been in retaliation for their resisting WTVT’s attempts to distort or suppress the BGH story and for threatening to report the alleged news distortion to the FCC. Akre also brought claims for declaratory relief and for breach of contract. After a four-week trial, a jury found against Wilson on all of his claims. The trial court directed a verdict against Akre on her breach of contract claim, Akre abandoned her claim for declaratory relief, and the trial court let her whistle-blower claims go to the jury. The jury rejected all of Akre’s claims except her claim that WTVT retaliated against her in response to her threat to disclose the alleged news distortion to the FCC.
The
St. Petersburg Times reported on the jury verdict and similarly reported on the failure of Akre and Wilson to win most of their claims:
The jury of three men and three women deliberated nearly six hours before finding that Fox affiliate Channel 13 had retaliated against Jane Akre for a story about a controversial hormone manufactured by the Monsanto Corp.
However, jurors refused to give any money to Akre’s husband, Steve Wilson, an Emmy-winning reporter who also worked on the story.
And the jury did not believe the couple’s claim that the station bowed to pressure from Monsanto to alter the news report.
Despite the limited victory, Akre and Wilson found vindication in the verdict…
It is also not correct to claim, as the Gaddy story quoted above states, that the jury ruled that the FOX affiliate had, in fact, found that the station had attempted to force Akre and Wilson to air
“a false, distorted or slanted story…”
Juries do not write opinions, instead they answer specific questions contained in jury instructions. According to a
web site maintained by Akre, the jury question on which she prevailed was:
“Do you find that the Plaintiff Jane Akre has proven, by the greater weight of the evidence, that the Defendant, through its employees or agents, terminated her employment or took other retaliatory personnel action against her, because she threatened to disclose to the Federal Communications Commission under oath, in writing, the broadcast of a false, distorted, or slanted news report which she reasonably believed would violate the prohibition against intentional falsification or distortion of the news on television, if it were aired?”
A careful reading of the jury instruction reveals that the jury was only answering whether they believed Akre had been fired for threatening to lodge a complaint with the FCC alleging broadcast of a false, distorted, or slanted news report, not whether the news report was in fact false, distorted, or slanted.
Akre disputes this interpretation on her own web site, claiming that “The jurors in my case said YES to the fact that Fox was guilty of pressuring me to falsify the news… When you look at the actual jury verdict form, the jury determined it
was actually false, distorted, or slanted. In fact, if jurors did not accept that premise, they could
not have gone on to find in my favor…”
But the FCC does not share Akre’s interpretation of the jury verdict. In a
2007 decision by the FCC denying a petition by Akre and Wilson demanding that WTVT’s broadcast license not be renewed, the FCC includes the following footnote:
Although there has been much back-and-forth among the parties about whether the jury in the employment lawsuit found that Station WTVT(TV) violated the news distortion policy, the verdict form did not ask the jury to determine whether WTVT(TV) violated the news distortion policy, but rather to determine whether Station WTVT(TV) fired either employee for threatening to disclose what the Petitioners reasonably believed would be a violation of the news distortion policy.
In addition, Akre’s claim that “…if jurors did not accept that premise, they could
not have gone on to find in my favor…” is undermined by her own filing with the 2nd District Court of Appeal in response to the appeal filed by WTVT. Akre’s brief states that “Akre had to prove three elements to establish her claim under the Whistle-Blower Act: (1) that WTVT retaliated against her (2) because she threatened to disclose to the FCC (3) conduct she
reasonably and in good faith believed was a violation of the FCC’s News Distortion Policy.”
The same brief later devotes several pages to support this contention, stating in part that “WTVT argues that the Act does not prohibit employer retaliation unless the employee proves an “actual” violation of a law, rule, or regulation… [but the] term “violation” as used in the Act has no obvious meaning, and could encompass
both perceived violations or proven ones…”
So the trial jury never reached a conclusion on whether the FOX affiliate had violated the news distortion policy, nor did they have to in order to determine she had been fired in response to the threat by Akre and Wilson to file a complaint with the FCC.
More importantly, and more relevant to the examination of whether WTVT actually asserted a”right to lie”in its newscasts, is that there is nothing on record to show that this argument was ever advanced in court.
http://www.campaignfreedom.org/2009/11/03/fox-lies-videotape-debunking-an-internet-myth/