Fox news lawyering up

I watch FOX, but when Hannity comes on I switch channels.

OldWiseGuy said:

I watch FOX, but when Hannity comes on I switch channels.

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Tucker is about the only one I'll watch on there. I'll get my news elsewhere.

98cwitr said:

Tucker is about the only one I'll watch on there. I'll get my news elsewhere.

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My favorite show as well.

“The strategy is no settlements, even if it costs way more to fight the lawsuit and seek sanctions for ambulance-chasing lawyers,” an executive told the Daily Beast.

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Oooh, I wonder if this means we'll be treated to discovery of internal Fox discussions...

The prosecution would have to prove that Fox knowingly, willfully, and voluntarily provided false information that threatened the welfare of others.

Hannity can be a bit much. I won't say he brings on anyone with bad intents but his sing song condescending approach is just not what I need to hear. But hey the other side has their beauts too.

JohnAshton said:

The prosecution would have to prove that Fox knowingly, willfully, and voluntarily provided false information that threatened the welfare of others.

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Is that true? Or could they be found liable merely through gross incompetence?

rambot said:

Everyone has their opinion on fox news so I'm not super keen to hear those again.

BUT, I am curious to hear what you're responses are to this (ps..I've seen this in multiple sources fyi)

Fox News Is Preparing to Be Sued Over Coronavirus Misinformation

My only question would be this: They would have to prove that Fox caused their viewership to under react and make stupid choices. Perhaps those people would make stupid choices without fox news. I mean it's not a flattering argument to make about the viewership but FoxNews viewers being stupid could be a great defence in litigation.

Perhaps.

Who knows?

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Well, it does seem to me that knowingly allowing some talk show host (such as one of their evening talk show hosts) to spread a false idea that is already widely known in the news to be false would be criminal when it results in people suffering/dying in significant
numbers, if that practice continued more than just a day or 2.

Of course, it's easier to prove that fault in a case of being sued for damages it would seem.

If one's family suffered hardship and losses due to a Fox News talk show misinformation, then it would seem they should be liable for those damages.

rambot said:

Everyone has their opinion on fox news so I'm not super keen to hear those again.

BUT, I am curious to hear what you're responses are to this (ps..I've seen this in multiple sources fyi)

Fox News Is Preparing to Be Sued Over Coronavirus Misinformation

My only question would be this: They would have to prove that Fox caused their viewership to under react and make stupid choices. Perhaps those people would make stupid choices without fox news. I mean it's not a flattering argument to make about the viewership but FoxNews viewers being stupid could be a great defence in litigation.

Perhaps.

Who knows?

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My opinion? I believe these lawsuits are frivolous. It’s a bunch of people taking advantage of our litigious society in a dishonest attempt to steal money from a respectable news corporation.

JohnAshton said:

The prosecution would have to prove that Fox knowingly, willfully, and voluntarily provided false information that threatened the welfare of others.

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Which is near impossible to prove. You to have a confession of guilt in some form for that to be proven. However, if one has a jury trial, a jury can make any kind of ridiculous decision it wants ignoring the rules of evidence when making the decision. Should that happen to Fox, then Trump and Biden, along with every other news source, would be sued and the courts would be overflowing with people looking to strike it rich. There has been multitudes of misinformation from a multitude of sources. Dr. Fauci could be sued for what he said in January about this. Was he trying to misinform the public or was he giving what he thought was the best available information?

I seriously doubt that any of the people that ended up or will end up being wrong were trying to get people to act irresponsibly so they would get the virus. The problem with pointing the finger at someone for giving misinformation is that there is a lot of information disseminated that is at least partly subjective opinion on what is correct based upon what is known at the time. Especially with something that was as unknown as this virus, there is no sure information to consult so people who are relied upon to disseminate information do the best they can and sometimes they are incorrect. They are giving what they believe to be the most reliable information on these sorts of things. Unlike their various political spins on the subject, I don't think they are trying to mislead or to misinform others about how they should protect themselves against the disease. Still reporters and opinion givers are as liable as he rest of us to gravitate toward information that seems to them to correlate with their own gut feelings.

There is also the problem of proving that people do things based only upon information from one source when the likelihood is that people do things based upon their own predisposition to do them and use whatever source they can find to reinforce it. So no left wing news source causes people to believe the left wing narrative about something that turns out to be wrong, no right wing source causes people to believe the right wing narrative that turns out to be wrong and not moderate source causes people to believe the moderate narrative that turns out to be wrong. People tend to begin with their own narrative and find those that agree with them.

grasping the after wind said:

I seriously doubt that any of the people that ended up or will end up being wrong were trying to get people to act irresponsibly so they would get the virus. The problem with pointing the finger at someone for giving misinformation is that there is a lot of information disseminated that is at least partly subjective opinion on what is correct based upon what is known at the time.

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If you dig into a particular show's inner workings, it's not too hard to tell if they're making a good faith effort to push factual news or if they're pushing bogus info in a way that's either negligent or deliberate. I would argue that, for example, comparisons to the flu were, at best, completely negligent due to what we knew early on about how quickly the virus spread and its rate of serious complications. Between that and some basic grade school math re: exponential growth curves, anybody with half a brain and an ounce of decency could tell that it was going to be a big deal.

Let's hope grasping the after wind defends Fox.

I expect the First Amendment gives them broad protection, even to knowingly spreading falsehoods. Possibly if they maliciously and knowingly spread falsehoods to harm people, they could be held accountable.

Hopefully loyal Fox viewers will get the hint when the successful defense is that Fox only knowingly spread falsehoods -- they held no malice toward their viewers.

[affects Southern lawyer drawl] Why, I declare it's to our advantage to see our viewers survive! At least to the end of the next commercial break, that is.

JohnAshton said:

Let's hope grasping the after wind defends Fox.

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I'm not a lawyer.

iluvatar5150 said:

If you dig into a particular show's inner workings, it's not too hard to tell if they're making a good faith effort to push factual news or if they're pushing bogus info in a way that's either negligent or deliberate. I would argue that, for example, comparisons to the flu were, at best, completely negligent due to what we knew early on about how quickly the virus spread and its rate of serious complications. Between that and some basic grade school math re: exponential growth curves, anybody with half a brain and an ounce of decency could tell that it was going to be a big deal.

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Was Dr Fauci pushing bogus info or did he not have half a brain when he told us back in January "this is not a major threat to the people of the United States and this is not something that the citizens of the United States right now should be worried about."?

grasping the after wind said:

Was Dr Fauci pushing bogus info or did he not have half a brain when he told us back in January "this is not a major threat to the people of the United States and this is not something that the citizens of the United States right now should be worried about."?

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I imagine he was acting in good faith and IIRC at the time, there were few or no cases in the US.

But I’ve heard Rush, for example, pooh poohing this within the last month.

essentialsaltes said:

I expect the First Amendment gives them broad protection, even to knowingly spreading falsehoods. Possibly if they maliciously and knowingly spread falsehoods to harm people, they could be held accountable.

Hopefully loyal Fox viewers will get the hint when the successful defense is that Fox only knowingly spread falsehoods -- they held no malice toward their viewers.

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Yet again, my prophecies come true.

The network's lawyers said in a motion seeking to dismiss the lawsuit that the "First Amendment does not permit censoring this type of speech based on the theory that it is 'false' or 'outrageous.' Nor does the law of the State of Washington."

essentialsaltes said:

Yet again, my prophecies come true.

The network's lawyers said in a motion seeking to dismiss the lawsuit that the "First Amendment does not permit censoring this type of speech based on the theory that it is 'false' or 'outrageous.' Nor does the law of the State of Washington."

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It looks like you got it right, and I am glad it is from my state.

They can claim First Amendment all they want, as a news organization they have a demonstratable requirement to report accurate information. I think it will be possible to show that Fox News did harm by not reporting accurate facts.