Making the press honest.

I posted this on another thread in another forum, but thought GD might be a good place for a post of its own. I always thought it would be good to make news people report the facts with a hefty fine to the reporter and news organization for knowingly putting forth propaganda, half-truths, untruths and fiction as "news". Of course our legislators would have to go to work making laws about it. I think it could work on a state level though.

Although no agency can run around being the truth police, there could be a provision for investigating any such news entities if many infractions have been noted or reported. If found guilty then they should be made to pay a fine commensurate with the infraction. The only exceptions would be if they put out a disclaimer for each news item, or program, saying that their program is fake news and is strictly for entertainment and not to be taken as serious news nor factual news.

If this seems draconian, remember every bartender in the country must determine if a client is either drunk or underage. If s/he is careless and serves and intoxicated person or a minor, s/he and her/his establishment are subject to appear in court and if found guilty forced to pay a hefty fine. Now drunks and minors will accidentally get served, however, if an establishment gets a reputation for this, then the vice police are dispatched to catch them in the act and reprimand them to the court system. Similar tactics could keep the fourth estate honest and on their toes for fact checking too. I don't think this one industry should get a free pass from regulation. It could be done with the right language and still protect free speech under the Constitution.

how would you get around the First Amendment?

Freedom of speech shouldn't cover spreading propaganda, disinformation and acting as a mouthpiece for the government and I don't think that's what the founding fathers intended. Their intent was that the people be free to speak the truth and report the facts to keep our government and politicians honest and under unbiased scrutiny. I don't think we are getting that from them today.

If a station wants to run the likes of Hannity and Limbaugh they need to put up a disclaimer that it's for entertainment only, or that the opinions expressed by the show host are not the opinions of the station. It seems the presents courts could do so just like they do to keep the restaurant business on their toes with a health department and department of alcoholic beverages. When you come under the scrutiny of these guys, they write you a ticket and you have to show up in court for a hearing.

a highly-charged political atmosphere? Ummmm, no thank you. I'll leave it the way it is, where I use my brain to determine what the truth is.

follow the intent of the First Ammendment. Also, in my state, judges are elected in the state's lower courts, where most of these hearings would take place, so you get a wide variety of positions from liberal to conservative. Of course if they rig the elections, well there we are again. We would have to admit the system is broken if our state and county courts can become political tools like the Supreme Court and we know the system is broken at the highest federal level.

would take place in the Federal court system...where they are appointed.

There are honest federal judges out there, and many are liberals because that's when they were appointed, but since the laws would be state laws it seems that it would go into the state or even county courts. National broadcasters would need to look at their bottom lines as to whether they wish to air their shows in those markets without the entertainment disclaimer.

there is a very good article in the Atlantic Monthly this month on just this matter. The press that the founding fathers relied on (and in some cases owned and participated) was much more partisan and slanted than anything we see today. So, I'm not sure I agree with your statement about the intent of the 1st Amendment, since the men who wrote it sure didn't act towards your "ideal".

and slaves. It doesn't take away from the power of the document though and what their intent was. They were looking to the future, not as things were in their day. They knew that change took time.

not for the veracity of its reporting. And, this wouldn't address newspapers and magazines...and blogs of course.

Rep. Louise Slaughter introduced a bill to renew the Media Fairness Doctrine -- it has no chance of getting passed but it can't hurt to sign it.

http://www.fairnessdoctrine.com/

Slaughter also has a lot of info at her website about the media (she's also been caling for an investigation into the Gannon matter)

http://www.slaughter.house.gov/HoR/Louise

no one seems to keep this updated. Thanks for posting.

Expecting regulations or some sort of legal "oversight" is asking for MORE intrustions into your remaining freedoms, not more. What is the criteria where the "media" goes from being honest to partisan? How do you set a standard that is used to determine a reporter's legimitacy or that will enable an over-zealous partisan from abusing this system to create even more headaches.

The only way the corporate media will reform is by its own implosion. They've gotten so big they are lumbering giants...but not very flexible...and with lots of internal fires always going on. Look at the airline industry and you'll see the future of the major corporate media outlets if they're left to continue to destroy any competition.

The goal here should be to coordinate, network and organize. I see so many "I posted this in an another thread", and people starting to duplicate and triplicate others research...lots of people shouting and no one listening.

I'm ready just to sit this one out now...see how things shake out.

traded on the stockmarket to do what it wants to without regulation. Would you want your restaurant, housing and car industries to be unregulated?

granted in the first amendment. More importantly, it works because of the ability of speakers to expresss themselves as they see fit, provided that they aren't threatening anyone, libeling anyone, or advocating violence.

The freedom of the press is one of the tenents of the first amendment and it's rights flow from our individual rights, as expressed in the constitution, governing expressions like protest and dissent. Care should be taken to not go down the road of censoring opinions that we disagree with. As Justice Douglas wrote in 1958: "Advocacy that is no way brigaded with action should always be protected by the First Amendment. That protection should extend even to the actions we despise."

edit: Most of the trouble lies with access to airwaves and the hard reality of marketability of sources, distribution, and esoteric limitations like popularity. Believability is also a factor. After all, many 'facts' have several interpretations.

"they aren't threatening anyone, libeling anyone, or advocating violence."

The free press threatened our last President with their constant beating the drum over the Lewinsky scandal. Libeling anyone? Where does all that Hillary hatred come from? Advocating violence. Who gave Chimp a free pass to invade a country and start a war with trumped up evidence that they reported without a thought to facts?

we have the ability to answer back with our own interpretation of facts.
They (we) were out there trying to get the word out.

Access seems to be the key, and distribution.

Randi Rhodes has stated on her radio show that the corporate media in this country is owned by six entities or corporations. What ever happened to anti-trust laws or laws against monopolies? If media ownership were broken down into more competitive segments maybe more at a state or local level by having laws against monopolies, this could bust up the commerical, one-sided, propaganda machine we have now. Smaller media companies competing against each other and regulated at a state level could accomplish higher standards of journalism without imposing regulations on the actual reporting of the news or impinging on the First Ammendment, which is everyone's concern.

Sorry.