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Should News media be held accountable for spreading false information?

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T

Takamura-San

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The media outlets are always outputting a mass amount of information to the public.

The upcoming elections multiply this information output by a lot.

All media outlets are to blame of spreading false information at some point. It doesn't matter if it is conservative or liberal outlets.

Should they be held accountable for this? By accountable I don't just mean another outlet accusing them of telling a lie to the public. But having laws that actually punish this spread of information.

Now i know this may cross the line for some for what it is called free speech and press. But I believe that when it comes to the press spreading false information destroys the foundation of what it is to be the news media.

I'm thinking about fines to those that don't correct their false statements timely and with the same attention and effort that was given to the false information.

What do you say Gaf?
 
It'd be nice but who do you put in charge of monitoring everything the media says? And how do you prevent them from being paid off by someone to let certain things go?
 
Like lying about a blowout with the girlfriend? Or lying about lies told about a blowout with the girlfriend? That sort of misinformation?

Yeah, pitchforks for them!
 
Derrick01 said:
It'd be nice but who do you put in charge of monitoring everything the media says? And how do you prevent them from being paid off by someone to let certain things go?
Click to expand...

I'm slowly arriving at the position that while giving any kind of government control over the media is a bad thing, letting the media be uncontrolled is also a bad thing, so I have no idea what the fuck to do. The current "news media" (and I'm not even going to name networks, they're all guilty) are almost without a doubt influencing voters not because of their content but because of their "talking heads" and their air of authority
 
They are held accountable by their credibility.

If some people want to stick with their lying news network because they say stuff that they want to hear, then there's not much you can do, at least that would seem moral.
 
There seems to be a high quantity of people who want to be lied to, so credibility isn't enough to keep these companies accountable.

I don't see a solution that doesn't infringe upon previous established rights, at least in the US.
 
It'd be nice but who do you put in charge of monitoring everything the media says? And how do you prevent them from being paid off by someone to let certain things go?
Click to expand...

I would think that an independent company that is funded by an equal pool of funds sponsored by all media companies.

That same company would be audited by the Gov.
 
Welcome to our modern world.

Where we so fear that media becomes propoganda for the government that we elect, that we unabashedly allow it to be the propoganda of the media elite and their monetary interests.


Anyway, the answer is independent commission of news watchdogs. Partially government funded, and media funded, with watchers drafted from media, government, education and other stakeholder groups that have the analytical capability to properly independently verify and check facts.

What powers should they have?

The ability to determine what and what can't call itself news and a news station. If you run afoul through constant lies and bullshit, you lose the ability to call your stations a news station. And in programs that present themselves as any sort of news media, they may be subject to carrying a label on screen warning viewers of their current credibility/accuracy report ratings.

Create classes of protected terms that require those terms to be held to a certain standard of integrity.

Journalists, news anchors, News station, News programmes, etc.

Even presentation methodology - no making your editorial programmes appear like a news show - they have to be clearly an entertainment programme.
 
Computer said:
If you believe false information it's your damn fault. Spreading lies is not a crime so there should be no punishment.
Click to expand...

These companies are using public airwaves and public infrastructure to disseminate their lies. What's more, they are given an aura of authenticity and authority when they label themselves as news and present themselves in the same way as a typical newscast.

It most certainly should be illegal to deliberately misinform the masses under the guise of educating and informing them.
 
Lord-Audie said:
I'm thinking about fines to those that don't correct their false statements timely and with the same attention and effort that was given to the false information.
Click to expand...

Doing so would have a chilling effect on the news media, which is arguably every bit as unhealthy as false reporting.

Do people really want us to return to the days of the Fairness Doctrine? Seriously?
 
demon said:
Fox News is the most popular news source in America. My hair is a bird.
Click to expand...

My hair is a drill

rkO6V.png
 
I guarantee a news organization would be able to find some person to support their assertions. It would be impossible to enforce.

It's also dangerous when you create penalties for saying the wrong thing. Too easy to take it to an extreme and silence opponents.

Zaptruder said:
Could you elaborate on this statement?
Click to expand...

If a news org feels that there's a chance that reporting on something unfavorable to the current administration will lead to penalties, they'll be less likely to report it.
 
Patryn said:
I guarantee a news organization would be able to find some person to support their assertions. It would be impossible to enforce.

It's also dangerous when you create penalties for saying the wrong thing. Too easy to take it to an extreme and silence opponents.
Click to expand...

Then explain the CBC and BBC. or NPR and PBS.
 
false statements can happen in the news industry, what pisses me off are when journalists deliberately use them at their need to diffamate someone else, since it's easy to correct the statement later, but not removing the bad idea you gave to the readers.
 
Zaptruder said:
Welcome to our modern world.

Where we so fear that media becomes propoganda for the government that we elect, that we unabashedly allow it to be the propoganda of the media elite and their monetary interests.


Anyway, the answer is independent commission of news watchdogs. Partially government funded, and media funded, with watchers drafted from media, government, education and other stakeholder groups that have the analytical capability to properly independently verify and check facts.

What powers should they have?

The ability to determine what and what can't call itself news and a news station. If you run afoul through constant lies and bullshit, you lose the ability to call your stations a news station. And in programs that present themselves as any sort of news media, they may be subject to carrying a label on screen warning viewers of their current credibility/accuracy report ratings.
Click to expand...

This is good. I think they should have the power to fine media outlets that don't correct their mistakes. I think the best initial course of action is to force them to correct the false information with the same attention and highlight that was allocated to the initial statement.
 
GaimeGuy said:
Then explain the CBC and BBC. or NPR and PBS.
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How do you mean? Based on the fact that those organizations receive government funding? This is a different thing: This is about penalizing directly for reporting something. As it is, we have Republicans calling for cutting all of PBS's and NPR's funding.
 
If you look at the newspapers throughout the history of the US, you'll find it's an American tradition to have some outlets push agendas at the expense of neutrality. It's easy to moan about how things have gotten worse, but they really haven't. Some of those old things are truly incredible.
 
Lord-Audie said:
This is good. I think they should have the power to fine media outlets that don't correct their mistakes. I think the best initial course of action is to force them to correct the false information with the same attention and highlight that was allocated to the initial statement.
Click to expand...

Except any such enforcement would almost certainly turn into partisan strong-arming rather than genuine fact checking.
 
Patryn said:
I guarantee a news organization would be able to find some person to support their assertions. It would be impossible to enforce.

It's also dangerous when you create penalties for saying the wrong thing. Too easy to take it to an extreme and silence opponents.



If a news org feels that there's a chance that reporting on something unfavorable to the current administration will lead to penalties, they'll be less likely to report it.
Click to expand...

And right now ,if a news org feels that there's a chance that reporting on something unfavorable to their monetary bottom line (cnn deliberately going out of their way to not criticize one side more than another so that no demographics get pissed off at them) or political interests (Murdoch and his cronies at Fox News directly coordinating with the GOP for talking points and news stories to cover), they won't report it, either.
 
GaimeGuy said:
And right now ,if a news org feels that there's a chance that reporting on something unfavorable to their monetary bottom line (cnn deliberately going out of their way to not criticize one side more than another so that no demographics get pissed off at them) or political interests (Murdoch and his cronies at Fox News directly coordinating with the GOP for talking points and news stories to cover), they won't report it, either.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Reporting news for a profit is just as bad as reporting "government approved" news. The only idea I really like is the part-govt funded, part-media funded organization composed of specialists across the spectrum.
 
Computer said:
If you believe false information it's your damn fault. Spreading lies is not a crime so there should be no punishment.
Click to expand...

Promoting the fact that spreading lies is not a crime in the US would probably be easier, cheaper and more effective than trying to police media outlets.

People just assume news outlets aren't allowed to lie, or at least don't consider they may be incentivized to do so.
 
demon said:
Fox News is the most popular news source in America. My hair is a bird.
Click to expand...

Speaking of hair, how many different versions of that avatar have you used over the years? I think this is the third or fourth one I've seen. I wonder if the model in the pic has hair anymore.

To the question in the thread: Yes, but how? There are places that do all kinds of fact checking on the news as is, yet it seems the more outrageous the source the better the ratings. People will tend to look for information that lines up with their own bias. If the major news outlets are held to a higher standard, there'll surely be plenty of unaffiliated websites that'll be raised up as news martyrs - the ones that tell what's really happening. "fair and balanced".

The Technomancer said:
Exactly. Reporting news for a profit is just as bad as reporting "government approved" news. The only idea I really like is the part-govt funded, part-media funded organization composed of specialists across the spectrum.
Click to expand...

Isn't that basically like NPR / PBS / PRI and other public media outlets?
 
Technosteve said:
I think it is a crime in the UK
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Yeah I was going to suggest an independent group, but that's what the FCC is and the US doesn't seem to like how that gets used.

In the UK we have OFCOM (Office of Communications) - a body, totally independent from the government, which oversees all communicative media (television, radio, even the internet). It exists to keep the Public Broadcasters honest, protect consumers from false and predatory marketing, to prevent the market from being monopolised and to oversee things like the sale of mobile phone frequencies. OFCOM has to be a balanced staffed body, and like the public service broadcasters it is charged and concerned with political independence and impartiality. For the newspapers, we have the Press Complains Commission - which is a voluntary self-regulatory body, again - independent from Government.

When a newspaper prints something bullshit in the UK, people have libel as a recourse - see Frankie Boyle VS The Daily Mirror just this week - who had labelled him a racist... he has just won thousands in damages. Wherever the PCC or OFCOM uphold a public complaint, a public apology / shaming is usually the end result. See The Sun newspaper re: Hillsborough. When the shit sufficiently hits the fan, the owners might even close the newspaper, (see News of the World and the phone hacking scandal).

Television is, if anything, more serious. The BBC, like PBS, is a public service broadcaster - it's paid for by everyone and can be watched by anyone, so allegations of a political leaning are taken seriously and complaints have to be investigated. At election time, all parties get equal time for their party political broadcasts -- no free reign on 'campaign ads' here. Big or small, you have your slots and that's it. If they have a dude from one party on BBC news talking about a particularly large story, they actually OBLIGE themselves to get the counterpoint from his/her counterpart - almost every single time. If they can't get someone in, you will commonly hear the presenter say something like "Well your opponent would say that x,y,z" - in an attempt to talk about both sides of the story in their absence anyway. Culturally, this has practically become a standard - Channel 4 news certainly try and operate in a similar way (ITN and Sky News not so much). The BBC in particular know that if they don't do that, a wave of complaints from Tory or Labour voters will come and hit them via OFCOM, and they'll be bombarded via their 'Points of View' style programmes.

Maybe the United States is too big for something like the FCC to regulate poor news-casting in a reasonable, rational manner -- but I don't see why stations shouldn't be forced into public, primetime retractions when they are proven to have libellously spread something that is complete bullshit. A complaints commission like the PCC would probably work on a state-level too.

Either organisation would have to be made up of equal nominations from major parties, set a strong threshold for complaints to be upheld, and strong penalties for unanimous agreement on wrongdoing. Bring a couple of non exec directors from outside of politics - media veterans (to add some media industry / legal insight). Just don't let the president or congress decide who sits on them, and don't mess with it like supreme court nominations, and you're all good.
 
All of the proposals in this thread make a few very naïve assumptions.

1) That the truth can always be 100% accurately determined
2) That any enforcement body could be free of any sort of partisan bias
3) That any enforcement body would have the manpower to monitor the thousands of different radio, television, print, and online media outlets in the United States

This would undoubtedly create a bigger problem than the one it supposedly solves.
 
1-D_FTW said:
If you look at the newspapers throughout the history of the US, you'll find it's an American tradition to have some outlets push agendas at the expense of neutrality. It's easy to moan about how things have gotten worse, but they really haven't. Some of those old things are truly incredible.
Click to expand...

The Boston Massacre, for instance.

653px-Boston_Massacre_high-res.jpg


What really happened was a mob surrounded a british soldier and began harassing and threatening him. About 6 or 7 other soldiers stationed themselves with the one being harassed to protect him... but the mob just continued to harass the group instead of the lone soldier. They began throwing objects at the soldiers, hitting them with enough force to knock them to the ground. who shot out at the mob in self defense, killing 5, and injuring 6. Some members of the mob swung cudgels and other blunt force weapons at the soldiers (it is unclear if this happened before or after the soldiers began shooting, though).

What is known is that a mob of civilians armed with hand-to-hand weapons surrounded a group of british soldiers and harassed and assaulted them. That is what the "massacre" of 1780 was. A group of 7 or 8 soldiers defending themselves from an angry mob in a situation that got completely out of hand. Nothing like ht way it was depicted by the media.
 
radioheadrule83 said:
Yeah I was going to suggest an independent group, but that's what the FCC is and the US doesn't seem to like how that gets used.

In the UK we have OFCOM (Office of Communications) - a body, totally independent from the government, which oversees all communicative media (television, radio, even the internet). It exists to keep the Public Broadcasters honest, protect consumers from false and predatory marketing, to prevent the market from being monopolised and to oversee things like the sale of mobile phone frequencies. OFCOM has to be a balanced staffed body, and like the public service broadcasters it is charged and concerned with political independence and impartiality. For the newspapers, we have the Press Complains Commission - which is a voluntary self-regulatory body, again - independent from Government.

When a newspaper prints something bullshit in the UK, people have libel as a recourse - see Frankie Boyle VS The Daily Mirror just this week - who had labelled him a racist... and where the PCC or OFCOM uphold a public complaint, a public apology / shaming is usually the end result. See The Sun re: Hillsborough. When the shit sufficiently hits the fan, the owner might even close the newspaper, (see News of the World and the phone hacking scandal).

Television is, if anything, more serious. The BBC, like PBS, is a public service broadcaster - it's paid for by everyone and can be watched by anyone, so allegations of a political leaning are taken seriously and complaints have to be investigated. At election time, all parties get equal time for their party political broadcasts -- no free reign on 'campaign ads' here. Big or small, you have your slots and that's it. If they have a dude from one party on BBC news talking about a particularly large story, they actually OBLIGE themselves to get the counterpoint from his/her counterpart - literally, every time. If they can't get someone in, you will commonly hear the presenter say something like "Well your opponent would say that x,y,z" - in an attempt to talk both sides of the story in their absence anyway. Culturally, this has practically become a standard - Channel 4 news certainly try and operate in a similar way (ITN and Sky News not so much).

Maybe the United States is too big for something like the FCC to regulate poor news-casting in a reasonable, rational manner -- but I don't see why stations shouldn't be forced into public, primetime retractions when they are proven to have libellously spread something that is complete bullshit. A complaints commission like the PCC would probably work on a state-level too.

Either organisation would have to be made up of equal nominations from major parties, set a strong threshold for complaints to be upheld, and strong penalties for unanimous agreement on wrongdoing. Bring a couple of non exec directors from outside of politics - media veterans (to add some media industry / legal insight). Just don't let the president or congress decide who sits on them, and don't mess with it like supreme court nominations, and you're all good.
Click to expand...

Such an enlightened view. In the US, if you live in a major swing state like Florida, TV is literally an offensive viewing habit. The amount of money spent on ads means it's a constant assault. And during sporting events, you're just stuck. I just end up hitting mute until the game resumes again.
 
BertramCooper said:
All of the proposals in this thread make a few very naïve assumptions.

1) That the truth can always be 100% accurately determined
2) That any enforcement body could be free of any sort of partisan bias
3) That any enforcement body would have the manpower to monitor the thousands of different radio, television, print, and online media outlets in the United States

This would undoubtedly create a bigger problem than the one it supposedly solves.
Click to expand...

ROCK FLAG AND EAGLE!

Seriously though, the dissemination of accurate information is an important part of a democracy. It behooves the good function of a state to have media that viewers can rely on. Even if there are costs associated in doing so; it's absolutely worth the smooth function of a democracy to do such a thing.

That said, such a body needn't be as big as you think. Simply have a system of citizen report; people see bullshit, they can send in reports to this watch dog body, they review the issues and have the power to force the hand of media organizations.

Have a wiki style discussion system for people to discuss the factuality of statements on news media as an additional resource for the public and the watch dog body to use.
 
I assume Thomas Jefferson's quote about newspapers could be applied to our current media.

"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." - Thomas Jefferson
Click to expand...
 
radioheadrule83 said:
At election time, all parties get equal time for their party political broadcasts -- no free reign on 'campaign ads' here. Big or small, you have your slots and that's it.
Click to expand...
Can we at least all agree that this would be a good idea? Does anyone really think the current political ad situation is good? The current system literally is "the more money you have, the more exposure you get"
 
In the perfect world, yes.
But in this imperfect world, I can definitely see the government pressuring the media into adopting its propaganda as the one truth.
 
The Technomancer said:
Can we at least all agree that this would be a good idea? Does anyone really think the current political ad situation is good? The current system literally is "the more money you have, the more exposure you get"
Click to expand...

Absolutely. I addressed the same thing earlier. It's the one crazy thing about Florida. You could pack a room with people from every single spectrum possible. And the only thing they would agree on is this: The ads are offensive and we wish we could stop being bombarded by them.
 
GaimeGuy said:
yet it is the most popular news organization, and millions of people use it as their only source of news.
Click to expand...

Bias Alert! GaimeGuy implies that Fox News viewers are ill informed!

something very similar to this (relating to debate analysis from a rival network) appeared on their website earlier today actually
 
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