Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Against Fox News For Reporting Bogus Story, Calls Doocy & Kilmeade "Gullible,"
By Logan Murphy Saturday Jun 07, 2008 11:00am
Video and more from Media Matters:
In a June 4 article headlined "Judge tosses school official's lawsuit against Fox News," the Associated Press reported on the dismissal of a school superintendent's lawsuit against the Fox News Channel and Fox & Friends co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade for repeating as fact an online parody news report of a school prank that included fabricated quotes attributed to the superintendent. The judge called Doocy and Kilmeade "gullible," as the AP noted, and while he dismissed the lawsuit, the Fox & Friends segment in question marked at least the third time since 2004 that Fox News has issued a retraction and apology for airing a fake news report that repeated false information. In fact, the segment aired after Fox News' Vice President for News John Moody reportedly warned staff in January 2007 that "seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air on FNC." In dismissing the suit, U.S. District Court Judge D. Brock Hornby wrote:
The facts in this case -- a morning cable news show derisively reporting events and statements obtained unwittingly from an online parody -- should provide grist for journalism classes teaching research and professionalism standards in the Internet age. But First Amendment principles developed long before the Internet still provide protection to the gullible news program hosts against this public official's claims for defamation and false light invasion of privacy. Poetic justice would subject the defendants to the same ridicule that they accorded the plaintiff. But in real life, the aggrieved school superintendent must be satisfied with their later retraction and a professional reputation sullied less than theirs. Read on...
Somehow, this comes to mind.
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One time, Steve Doocy asked me to put my toes in his nose.
There, that is now a fact.
He was gullible. ALL Fox News is fake news. If you don't know that then sucks to be you.
Seriously? Did you expect to see some justice and fairness in a U.S. court? In this day and age? Police State!
Now, I know nationalists and naive patriots whine that we have the BEST justice system in the world (USA, USA, USA!!!) Well, we don't. I guess some rednecks have never been to Europe.
But, the fact remains, this country has sold it's principles loooooooooooong ago, if it ever had any to begin with, what with the extermination of native Americans and slavery. F**ing pathetic.
Sins of the fathers
The implication is that Fox News occasionally airs ACTUAL news. Funny - I've never seen any on there.
Doocey and Kilmeade are "Dumb and Dumber"
I really enjoyed the clip from the movie. Were they stuck together by frozen pee in the last part of that scene?
Your TV is nothing more than a window to a vast wasteland. Sit and stare.
If that judge had any sense of fairness to the plaintiff he would have ruled that Doocey admit "gullability" on the air. Or mabye not, these guys are just "Morons in the Morning"
The purose of the first amendment was to ensure that the truth was available to all citizens, and the truth could be spoken or written by any citizen - without fear of acts or revenge by the rich, powerful, or the government.
Once again we see a judge allowing powerful people, or a powerful business, to get away with causing harm to, or deliberately misleading citizens of this country using their own ignorance as a legal defense.
How does this test defamation of character lawsuits for spreading false statements if the news agency gets their information from bogus sources? Do plaintiffs now seek out the originator or the most damaging party responsible?
Che's Lounge @ 6:
Boy, ain't that a fact.
They don't "report" news anymore, they regurgitate stories and then play in it like children trying to make it look interesting.
There ya have it, folks! Pretty much incontrovertible proof that FOX "News" isn't a news network at all. They don't research stories or fact check (Yeah, I know CNN is much better these days, but still). They just pull bullshit off the internets and run with it. Remember, these were the geniuses who didn't know that it was STEPHEN Douglas, not FREDERICK DouGLASS, who had the famous debates with Abraham Lincoln. And THIS is the primary source of information for a big chunck of the American population?? JESUS.......FUCKING.......CHRIST!!!
hr @ 7:
Hmmm, "Morons in the Morning" has a nice ring to it.
geneHUSSEIN214 @ 11:
That should read CNN ISN'T much better these days. Must proofread!
Destroy the media. Stop watching.
Marnie @ 8:
And what, pray tell, was the judge supposed to do? As the judge pointed out much later in his order of dismissal, there is a fairly wide gulf between being idiotic and showing reckless disregard for the facts.
They were idiots, but they were not reckless - thus, they did not meet the minimum standard for the suit to continue.
Even worse.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3441805108254483121
Fucking Morons
"Poetic justice would subject the defendants to the same ridicule that they accorded the plaintiff. But in real life, the aggrieved school superintendent must be satisfied with their later retraction and a professional reputation sullied less than theirs."
Ouch! I love that.
Now the idiots on Fox are going to say that the judge took their comments "out of context." lol
Morris @ 3:
Your kidding me right? What exactly would you have the judge do? Slap Fox with a fine? Slap Doocy and Kilmeade with fines? Order a harsher penalty? Are you willing to support similar penalties on Air America if they get a story wrong?
No matter what you think of the MSM or any other media, if you penalize them for stupidity, you have a chilling effect on free speech.
FOX is owned by Murdock.
Murdock is so rich that he offers a protection racket for politicians through Corporate Lobbying and Lies put out on his network.
What's the big surprise here?
I feel bad for the school superintendent but I think the judge made the best possible call. The superintendent's defamation claim would be difficult to prove even in the best of circumstances since he would have to prove in court that Fox News willingly attempted to misrepresent the story themselves. Since Fox News obtained their now known phony information from an online parody website the judge more than likely took that information as being "here say". I firmly believe that Fox News knew that the information they presented was false but unfortunately, as I have said, proving that is an entirely different matter.
I think the real point with this post is that the "news" should never be taken as fact by the viewing public. If Fox News can do this sort of thing then so can other news outlets.
"Gullible...professional reputation sullied"
Even though the suit was dismissed, Fox still loses.
Fox news does this a lot.
When a Democrat does something they like, they have a label showing that he (or her) is a republican. When a republican does something they do not like, the have a label showing that he is a Democrat.
Their fans see it and believe it and Fox pretends that it was a mistake.
Works every time !!
It's soooo easy to embarrass these complete lying morons on Faux noise.
Limp-Dick Blimpaugh @ 24:
They should be embarrassed but they are not. They are propagandists and nothing embarrasses them.
We report, the judge decides
Steve Doocy, and Brown Haired Guy WHo Is Not Steve Doocy, I have a special message for you from all of the world, delivered by one simple guy.
I love it, that scumbag says there was No Malintent, give me a brake the whole Fox New business model has Malintent.
Joe O. @ 21:
So Faux got their story from Drudge !
Could the judge at the very least send Kilmeade and Doochy over to help host The View in brainless gossip mongering, where their real talents lie?
FauxNews gets it's stories from Drudge and scat sites like noquarterusa. This is why the average FauxNews jackalope thinks Obama is a "secret radical Muslim."
Douchey....good god.
No where did I see Faux News show any respect for the Muslim tradition. No doubt, when someone says "Holiday Greetings" in instead of "Merry Christmas", Fox is all over that story, in a serious manner.
StirFrying for Unity @ 31:
I saw Senator Feinstein and Senator Kay Baily give a “A Terrorist Fist Jab?” on Wolfie this morning. The terrorist are everywhere!!! We mush be vigilant.
Two things strike me about this clip:
1] When you must issue two retractions in the space of a month (iirc), you shouldn't be allowed to call yourself "news" anymore.
2) The comment: "It's true! I looked it up." HE looked it up? I thought "fact checkers" were supposed to verify what you put on the air? I'm trying to Imagine Brian Williams (NBC), Katie Couric (CBS) or Charlie Gibson (ABC) assuring viewers, "It's true! I looked it up!"
Ron @ 25:
Not even this or this 2:00 embarrasses Brian Kilmeade.
What killed more than 300 people in 2007, more than all the wild predators (toothed and clawed) combined,
yet is praised as safe and promoted on Faux and other MSM channels as safe and good for us.
This is the reality of corporate 'its good for you' reporting and promoting.
The Iniquitous Project Vol. 1
Gullible doesn't even begin to cover it.
*
What kind of "journalist" doesn't check their sources?
Ahhhhhhhh!! That's right - we're talking about Faux News . . . .
*
curtilingus @ 14:
We did that 16 years ago.
Please believe me when I say WE DID NOT MISS IT - NOT FOR A MINUTE.
It might be tough for a bit - but I'm speaking the truth. Turn the damned thing off.
We have not watch even one minute of TV in 16 years (except for what we access via the internet from sites like this)
*
I use the internet primarily for sources I know are good: C&L, New York Times, the BBC, The Guardian, and to check spellings for words and concepts I'm already familiar with,
And for monkey porn.
Ron @ 16:
Thanks for this one.
geneHUSSEIN214 @ 11:
I have to agree with you but MSNBC always blew it one time. Rachel Maddow (whom I love) was filling in for Keith (whom I love more) and she was talking about the time in 1867 (and 1868 - they tried twice) when Congress impeached Andrew Johnson. Only Rachel (who should have her own show) said Andrew Jackson. But Andrew Jackson was president from 1829 - 1837 ( and died in 1845). I kept expecting her to come back and say she misspoke herself and I figured that Keith would mention it the next night as something misspoken and I sure figure that C&Ls would have it here.
Nope, silence. It isn't as bad as the continued stupidity of Faux Noise, but it seemed as if no one realized the mistake.
Fox lies and they've been doing it for awhile:
Appellate Court Rules Media Can Legally Lie.
By Mike Gaddy
On February 14, a Florida Appeals court ruled there is absolutely nothing illegal about lying, concealing or distorting information by a major press organization. The court reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre who charged she was pressured by Fox Television management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information. The ruling basically declares it is technically not against any law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast.
On August 18, 2000, a six-person jury was unanimous in its conclusion that Akre was indeed fired for threatening to report the station's pressure to broadcast what jurors decided was "a false, distorted, or slanted" story about the widespread use of growth hormone in dairy cows. The court did not dispute the heart of Akre's claim, that Fox pressured her to broadcast a false story to protect the broadcaster from having to defend the truth in court, as well as suffer the ire of irate advertisers.
Fox argued from the first, and failed on three separate occasions, in front of three different judges, to have the case tossed out on the grounds there is no hard, fast, and written rule against deliberate distortion of the news. The attorneys for Fox, owned by media baron Rupert Murdock, argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves. In its six-page written decision, the Court of Appeals held that the Federal Communications Commission position against news distortion is only a "policy," not a promulgated law, rule, or regulation.
Fox aired a report after the ruling saying it was "totally vindicated" by the verdict.
[Edited. Bandwidth is expensive. You may not reprint lengthy text from your own works or those of others, including news articles. You may link to them. And please quit posting it in its entirety on this site. It's turned into spam-Sitemonitor]
Doocey and Kilmeade went on to discuss the latest "phoenix lights" sightings and closed the segment by asserting that some people on the internet were saying that evolution was a "bunch of baloney". The pair then hi-fived each other and declared that all "your liberals bases now belong to us".
So can we call them the Gullible Old Pervert Propaganda Network?
A modest proposal: Whenever FUX News talking heads run with a story like this, they should be turned into ham, and served for dinner at smart people's homes.
Morris @ 3:
Ugh. Come on, do you even know the basic rules for defamation cases and how they interact with the freedom of the press guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments? Do you know all the facts of this case? Or are you just making broad, sweeping judgments about the legal system in general because you personally dislike the outcome here?
In case anyone is wondering, here's a basic breakdown of defamation rules (minus the strange rules about the need to show damages):
1. If a non-public plaintiff sues for defamation about a matter not of public concern, she must prove publication of defamatory language of or concerning herself.
2. If a non-public plaintiff sues for defamation about a matter of public concern, she must show faulty publication of false defamatory language of or concerning herself.
3. If a public plaintiff sues for defamation about a matter of public concern, she must show malicious publication of false defamatory language of or concerning herself.
With this case, we're in category 2. And it is a long-standing rule of American law that publication of nonsense, but with a bona fide good faith belief that the nonsense is true, does not rise to the level of fault to satisfy a defamation suit of this sort. Indeed, as Bob Roberts says (19), the idea is to avoid chilling the freedom speech and of the press. And that's a good thing.
After all, that commitment is what allows C&L to call out FUX News for its blithering idiocy the next day.
Gullible? Perhaps. Unintentional? I think not. Far too often Faux News has misrepresented facts that put the GOP in a favorable light and smear their Democratic opponents. Seems to me it happens frequently enough to establish a course of conduct that suggests foreknowledge and purpose. "We deceive, you believe."
Of course the people are gullible. After all, they sucked up all the fake news about WMDs, yellow cake (I think most of the people thought it was a fingerfood before), the Saddam connection to Laden, the whole "wipe this and that off the map", and Iran's nuclear weapon program. One little fake news would not hurt anyone, right? Or maybe they should start cracking down on them? Hm.
“seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right"
OMG...they have to be told that? These are adults?
My dog has a higher i.q. than the entire cast of that ridiculous show.
Maybe Murdoch would let my dog host a morning show. He could fart and be amazed at the sound coming out of his ass, lick his balls, drool on some news items and still be more of a journalist than these clowns.
Gullible Travails.
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