The news is Legally allowed to Lie. - by Volitions Advocate
Shakey-Lo on 30/6/2009 at 12:21
Quote Posted by Thirith
So the price for a free press is that it's free to spread lies? Do I understand that correctly?
yes
DDL on 30/6/2009 at 12:31
Essentially I guess we'd want a situation where the news was self-policing: i.e. individual news outlets are free to lie (legally), but would not do so, because they'd be at risk of being found out, and pounced on as the lying shitbags they are by all the other news outlets.
Sort of like how it works in science.
Except the set up is entirely different, the individual agendas are far far more pressing, and I guess the lies are already so firmly entrenched that it becomes more of a case of "shit, if we point out that they're lying they'll point out all the lies we've reported in the past", and so on and so forth and everyone studiously avoids confronting the issue in the hope that it'll go away.
:(
Thirith on 30/6/2009 at 13:05
Quote Posted by Aerothorn
Heck yeah! The First Amendment is broad and sweeping, and I frankly wouldn't have it any other way. There are serious costs (this, for instance) but I think the benefit to society and public discourse is worth it.
The thing is, I honestly don't see the public discourse in the United States being any better than in your average western European country, which by and large has freedom of speech but it's not as much of a dogma than in the US. Or is this simply my own Eurocentric blindness to the reality of things?
Paz on 30/6/2009 at 16:05
Quote:
So the price for a free press is that it's free to spread lies?
Well not entirely.
In the UK you've got the Press Complaints Commission who in theory can act as a semi-independent regulator but in reality are just crap (until recently they had Mail editor Paul Dacre as chairman of the Editors' Code of Practice Committee ... so in effect he was deciding whether to pursue complaints against his own newspaper, with hilarious consequences.)
Far more powerful is THE LAW™, although this tends to merely encourage super-safe journalism. The 1952 Defamation Act protects journalists against libel when stories are based on official statements from government, police, army, local authority etc etc.
Unfortunately that means if the government say a dude is guilty of something the press can safely print it (and they will, because it always comes neatly packaged in a pre-prepared government press release with full background info and some nice quotes.) But if a dude says the government are guilty of something, the press could cop some shit. So you can imagine how well that works.
Our libel laws don't seem to be working (
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jun/04/simon-singh-libel-british-chiropractic-association-bca) too splendidly at the moment either, but then I ain't no lawyer m'lud.
Matthew on 30/6/2009 at 16:16
I am, and I can say that our defamation laws are not exactly brilliant.
Aerothorn on 30/6/2009 at 22:07
Quote Posted by Thirith
The thing is, I honestly don't see the public discourse in the United States being any better than in your average western European country, which by and large has freedom of speech but it's not as much of a dogma than in the US. Or is this simply my own Eurocentric blindness to the reality of things?
I've never been to Europe, so I can't comment either way, but I would suspect that you're right. That said, there are numerous differences between the countries - I would suspect that without freedom of speech our political advancement/dialog would be severely stunted. Many historically unpopular ideas that ended up being accepted (woman's suffrage, for instance) would have been a lot harder to move along if speech could be censored for being unpopular.
Note that I am no expert orator on this subject: organizations like (
http://thefire.org) FIRE make the case much better (though in this case, specifically in reference to education). FIRE's (
http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/5063.html) Guide to Free Speech on Campus spends some time laying out the basic justifications for broad free speech codes in the United States, so if you're interested in why this is a big thing here that's a good place to start.
It's worth noting that despite what it may seem to Europeans, the First Amendment isn't hugely popular over here. It's sort of ingrained in the American identity, so most people will SAY they support it, but you can then give them examples of extremely unpopular speech and they will say it should not be allowed. Hence the first amendment being violated all over the place, particularly in higher education.
I actually took a really good, comprehensive Freedom of Expression course this past year, but I can't remember most of the specifics. I ended up writing a final paper chronicling the history of how video games became a protected form of expression, which provided me the opportunity to use clips of Pong, Pac-Man and Metal Gear Solid 4 in a class presentation.
Kolya on 1/7/2009 at 06:43
Quote Posted by Thirith
The thing is, I honestly don't see the public discourse in the United States being any better than in your average western European country
Italy?
Thirith on 1/7/2009 at 06:58
Italy is not an average western European country by any standard.
Italy is a banana republic, with the difference that their buffoonish dictator is elected by the most inconceivably weird population (at least in political terms) on our hemisphere.
Italy is one of the places that makes me think that Churchill's verdict on democracy may have been wrong...
