Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Paris mayor: "I may sue Fox News for reporting lies" Fox: "We legally can lie"

Fox TV News is back in the news. And yes you guessed it: They are in the news for distortion of news (nice way of saying lying) once again.

Fox, infamous for their right-wing agenda propaganda, is facing a law suit from Paris.

That's right, the city of Paris is upset about Fox reporting the fictitious story about no-go zones areas in the city:

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo told CNN Tuesday that she may sue Fox News because the network "insulted" the city with its coverage of "no-go zones" that are supposedly only for Muslim residents.

Such zones don't exist and Fox News has repeatedly apologized for the errors.

"When we're insulted, and when we've had an image, then I think we'll have to sue, I think we'll have to go to court, in order to have these words removed," CNN quoted Hidalgo as saying to the network's Christiane Amanpour.

"The image of Paris has been prejudiced, and the honor of Paris has been prejudiced."  source

Apparently, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo isn't the only European leader to ridicule the Fox-treatment of facts (once again to lie and make up facts as they fit their far-right narrative): British Prime Minister David Cameron also jumped into the fray when Fox erroneously reported no-go zones (without a shred of evidence) existed in Birmingham and parts of London.

The Fox News commentator who said the British city of Birmingham was a no-go zone for non-Muslims is a “complete idiot”, the prime minister, David Cameron, has said.

“When I heard this, frankly, I choked on my porridge and I thought it must be April Fools’ day,” Cameron said. “This guy’s clearly a complete idiot.”

Terrorism expert Steven Emerson claimed on US news channel Fox News that non-Muslims do not go to Birmingham, which he said had become a “totally Muslim” city.  source

Did he say he was eating porridge without mentioning whey? lol

Anyway, how can a network consistently lie and distort news and still maintain a FCC broadcast license? Are there not laws on the books protecting the American viewing public from a station purposely miss-reporting nightly news?

As incredulous as it sounds, Fox has been sued and they won their case based on:

In a stunningly narrow interpretation of FCC rules, the Florida Appeals court claimed that the FCC policy against falsification of the news does not rise to the level of a "law, rule, or regulation," it was simply a "policy." Therefore, it is up to the station whether or not it wants to report honestly.

During their appeal, FOX asserted that there are no written rules against distorting news in the media. They argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves. 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. source

Seems as if fat cat Rupert Murdoch made some timely judicial donations.

If this crazy ish is the official American response to Fox, I hope that the Paris mayor's court jurisdiction is in France not here.

Any wonder that the average Fox viewer is more uninformed than people who don't even watch news?

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