Does Big Media have the right to spread misinformation?

[Black Wolf]

This topic is not about defamation, but misinformation about a certain drug. Ie: Telling you a drug makes you crap roses when it doesn't.

Fox News, back in 2003, threatened to fire Jane Akre if she did not wilfully spread misinformation about Bovine Growth Hormone, a drug that was approved by the FCC. She and her husband was fired, and they initiated a lawsuit against them. Fox News responded to the lawsuit by arguing that the first amendment protects their right to lie.

Does the first amendment give you the right to broadcast lies about products? Potentially, if you advertise yourself as a news station, and proclaim to tell the truth, and refuse to, you can get sued. But if you advertise yourself as a satirical news source, you do not have to live up to any responsibilities of telling the truth.

Fox News, however, establishes itself as giving you "both sides of the issue". Did Fox News at any point proclaim to give truthful information?

[DavidOdden]

Does the first amendment give you the right to broadcast lies about products?

Yes.

[TuringAI]

Yes.

More importantly, in an Objectivist society, why should we tolerate such fraud?

[khaight]

More importantly, in an Objectivist society, why should we tolerate such fraud?

I think the question is whether the 'lie' in question rises to the level of a libel or slander. In general we don't want the government to prosecute simple lies because that places the government in the position of backing up its view of the truth with force. Would you want the Obama administration to be able to prosecute a broadcaster who spread what it considered to be lies about, say, the effects of the health care reform law?

[DavidOdden]

More importantly, in an Objectivist society, why should we tolerate such fraud?

For the same reason we should tolerate your question.

[whYNOT]

When it comes to getting information from the media, my advice is exactly the same as when buying a product : - "let the buyer beware."

I've worked on a daily newspaper and two financial weeklies, and all of them had an Editorial Policy handed down by the Managing Editor/ Publisher; whether it was political, economic or societal, the finished result reflected this policy in print.

The media, in what it prints, or most importantly does not print, has its own agenda - impartial? Forget it!

[TuringAI]

For the same reason we should tolerate your question.

Well I don't think my question was dishonest. Though as a private entity Objectivism Online has a right to arbitrarily decide whether or not to tolerate it.

I think I understand the issue better now. Lying shouldn't be a crime. It should be understood as an implicit disclaimer that speech, ALL speech where there is NO subsequent transaction or transfer of some sort, may in fact be untruthful.

HOWEVER I think that when they are talking about a specific person or product (good/service) they should at least be able to be held liable for tort damages UNLESS they use an EXPLICIT disclaimer that covers the case in question.

We can't hold news media to one standard and the general populace to another. That's a double standard that we cannot afford, as it invites reprisal from the public at the voting booth and leads to LESS freedom for news media in the long run.

[DavidOdden]

Well I don't think my question was dishonest. Though as a private entity Objectivism Online has a right to arbitrarily decide whether or not to tolerate it.

My answer was supposed to get you to think about the utterly bizarre presupposition behind your question, namely whether not running a show which denigrated a company's product is a choice that needs to be justified.

HOWEVER I think that when they are talking about a specific person or product (good/service) they should at least be able to be held liable for tort damages UNLESS they use an EXPLICIT disclaimer that covers the case in question.

That is a separate matter, namely the question of defamation (for which there is a separate thread). In this case, there is obviously no defamation, rather, there is refusal (by Fox) to defame.

[aleph_0]

I think, perhaps, this might be in the spirit of what Turing had in mind: When making a claim to another person, does this constitute a verbal contract that your claim is truthful, thereby making lies a form of fraud? I don't think so, but it's a good idea or exercise in analysis to discuss the matter. Under most circumstances, I see no reason to suppose that any given claim comes with any implicit contractual agreement of truth. Contracts have to be stated in language that makes it clear to all parties involved that there is a mutual agreement of exchange, and that's not the case by mere assertion.

However, some situations may seem harder to adjudicate. For instance, if you publish consumer reports, and claim that a given product is defective when it's not--or vice versa--one might argue that this violates a contract. I believe that you commit (something like) fraud when you sell meat that has spoiled (without letting the consumer know that it's spoiled), or a car with no engine. We can dispute this if others disagree, I'm not sure what the Objectivist consensus on this is. But when you call something meat without additionally qualifying that statement, standard English rules in normal contexts cause your listener to understand that the meat is edible when cooked in some standard way. If it is rotten or laced with poison, this is fraud because you were led to believe something about the product which is false. Likewise, if you sell someone a car, because of the pragmatics of English, you lead your listener to understand that the car has an engine. Where to draw the line seems difficult, and the appropriate discussion for a court which spends decades and centuries establishing case law, as well as any kind of specific laws enacted by a legislature. We might argue that pragmatics should not be taken into consideration when forming contracts, but then take the following scenario: Somebody commits adultery with another man's wife, and the husband learns of it without telling either of the other two, then invites the other man over for dinner and serves him poisoned food. This isn't terribly far-fetched, things of this ilk are reported in the news fairly often in a given year. If we don't call this murder, that seems outlandish, and if we call it murder then it would have to be because the person identified the food as "food" rather than "poisoned food". If he had presented the food to the other man, calling it "poisoned food", then we probably shouldn't charge him with murder.

So if I'm convincing in this argument, then by identifying a publication as a "consumer report" implies that the publication tells facts about the performance of a product on the market. In that case, to do otherwise deliberately seems like a breech of contract.

[Editted for better wording.]

Edited June 28, 2010 by aleph_0

[aleph_0]

Oh right, getting back to the point, would it be a violation of contract to sell media which publishes false claims? I'm not entirely certain, but I do feel confident in saying that, if we lived in a capitalist society where this was somewhat uncertain, then media companies would add provisos in their contracts, stating that they will not be held accountable for any claims which may be false--or they would qualify all claims with "a source has informed us that...", so that their claims are generally immune from falsification.

[DavidOdden]

I think, perhaps, this might be in the spirit of what Turing had in mind: When making a claim to another person, does this constitute a verbal contract that your claim is truthful, thereby making lies a form of fraud?

So this has nothing at all to do with the Fox v. Akre case (which is simply about whether a news organization has a right to fire an employee). But no, "making a claim" alone cannot give rise to fraud. The most important missing factor is the "would not otherwise" factor. The essence of fraud is knowingly making a false representation about a thing in order to induce another party to give something of tangible value in exchange for the thing, which they would not have otherwise done had they known the true nature of the thing.

As applied to broadcast news, the concept of "fraud" is almost totally inapplicable, at least with respect to the relationship of the organization and viewers. There is no direct exchange between the organization and the viewer, nor is there a sufficiently explicit commitment by the organization to provide a specific thing that a viewer could sensible allege that "they would not have otherwise". (Moreover, the supposedly damaged party would be the viewer who views unsatisfactory content). For example, I cannot sue the network for broadcasting the show "Different Strokes" because I judge it to be stupid and I allege that the network implicitly promised to show only non-stupid shows.

For instance, if you publish consumer reports, and claim that a given product is defective when it's not--or vice versa--one might argue that this violates a contract.

Perhaps, if you ramp this up a bit. Let's say that "Consumer Tattler" wishes to increase its paid circulation, and does so with a series of exposés alleging that their laboratory tests prove that Cuisinart food processors explode with fatal consequences (and of course the supposed lab results are simply false). The implication that the publication provides valuable information which they will provide in exchange for money is there, the product is not what it claims to be (it is not "information", it is falsehoods), it is reasonable to conclude that customers would not have paid for the magazine if they had known that the content was false (it is not represented as literary fiction). Thus the concept "fraud" would apply.

We might argue that pragmatics should not be taken into consideration when forming contracts,

We might, but it would be plainly stupid to do so. What you might do, more successfully, is show that the claimed conclusion is not entailed, and it is not "probable" that it is implied (thus, no reasonable man would reach the conclusion that the statement implies X).

So if I'm convincing in this argument, then by identifying a publication as a "consumer report" implies that the publication tells facts about the performance of a product on the market. In that case, to do otherwise deliberately seems like a breech of contract.

No, the act of labeling something as a "consumer report" is not at all relevant to the determination of fraud.

I don't know the details of the content of the Akre story (since it was not aired), but for the sake of argument, let us assume that the story contained false assertions. Let us assume that the false assertions include an interview with a distraught mother who says "Monsanto poisoned by son" (in fact Monsanto did not poison her son), and an interview with a university professor who says says "Monsanto is poisoning consumers" (it is not). Akre then assembles these lies into a show: however, she herself is not making the false representations, she is acting as a conduit for the false statements. She is not directly reporting "the facts" about Monsanto, she is reporting the facts about other people's statements about Monsanto. Assuming that Akre did not pay the interviewees to make false statements, Akre therefore was truthful (though clearly biased) with respect to what she literally presents. Here is where you get into the pragmatic problem, that people may have some tendency to think "Well, the news is 'responsible', surely they would investigate the matter to be absolutely certain that the statements are indeed true". But I don't think that's a valid assumption, at least in the context of modern news reportage. (If you have any doubts, watch the NBC nightly 'It's not news but its what we're feeding you" performance, coming from Venice, LA).

Had Fox aired that show, they would have had a degree of moral responsibility for Akre's false representations, but for the reason that Akre herself would not have been guilty of fraud, Fox also would not have been. Moreover, broadcast news is just "put out there", and you don't pay Fox to watch their news. An advertiser might have a slightly better standing in a fraud matter, since advertisers do actually pay the network and if they had known that the show was false, an advertiser might successfully show "Had we known that they were going to air this false report, we would not have purchased advertising time at that time with that network". That assumes that they can demonstrate that the materiality requirement is satisfied, i.e. that their decision to advertise is based not on the viewer share of the show (which is actually what matters), but rather on a content relationship. (For example: if the advertiser were Monsanto, and if Fox had knowingly suppressed the information that the news that night would contain false reports about Monsanto -- a reasonable man could easily conclude that Monsanto would not want to pay to be defamed).

But of course, Fox did not air that show and in fact wanted Akre to air the other side of the story, which she refused to do, and they exercised their option to fire her about a year later. Akre's claim was that she had a privileged "whistle-blower" status that made her immune to being fired.

[aleph_0]

So this has nothing at all to do with the Fox v. Akre case (which is simply about whether a news organization has a right to fire an employee).

Perhaps not, but the question at issue seemed to me to be: Would a rational political society outlaw expressions of false propositions? I took it that the court case was a related issue which perhaps inspired the question. You may note that the only question-marks that appear in the original post, and in the text which I quoted when I made my response, occurred where individuals were asking about the proper legality of stating lies, so I don't think I'm in danger of posting off-topic.

As applied to broadcast news, the concept of "fraud" is almost totally inapplicable

Unless, perhaps, the sale of the rights to view the news implies that the statements in the news are factual, rather than fictional? I think it would be fraud if I paid for cable or a newspaper, only to find that the "news" company (or, in this case, cable company which had promised the provision of cable news) had decided to cut the costs of hiring journalists by publishing a collection of Mother Goose stories.

We might, but it would be plainly stupid to do so.

...

No, the act of labeling something as a "consumer report" is not at all relevant to the determination of fraud.

Ah! How silly of me, of course we should not ignore the pragmatics of the expressions of the contract, but instead we should ignore the propositional content!

If you label a product as a "consumer report" for the purpose of selling it, but do not actually sell a consumer report, that seems like a quintessential act of fraud. If somebody tells me he will give me a consumer report in exchange for money, and then hands me a brick--I say he's a fraud.

I don't know the details of the content of the Akre story (since it was not aired), but for the sake of argument, let us assume that the story contained false assertions. Let us assume that the false assertions include an interview with a distraught mother who says "Monsanto poisoned by son" (in fact Monsanto did not poison her son), and an interview with a university professor who says says "Monsanto is poisoning consumers" (it is not). Akre then assembles these lies into a show: however, she herself is not making the false representations, she is acting as a conduit for the false statements.

This echoes exactly what I wrote:

I do feel confident in saying that, if we lived in a capitalist society where this was somewhat uncertain, then media companies would ... qualify all claims with "a source has informed us that...", so that their claims are generally immune from falsification.

So we do not disagree. Good.

But I don't think that's a valid assumption, at least in the context of modern news reportage.

Nor do I, but even if there were some disagreement on this point, I don't think it's worth splitting hairs. This seems like the kind of thing that should either be left to explicit legislative act, or court decisions. In either case, when the rule is made explicit and companies are aware of the laws, they will write contracts with their consumers or broadcast their content with the appropriate restrictions, in order to avoid such problems.