FAUX NEWS WINS AGAIN :-(

FAUX News hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade were sued for speading false information about Leon Levesque, the superintendent of Lewiston Public Schools in Maine. Unfortunately, Mr. Levesque lost in Federal Appellate Court, though we may take some comfort in the Court's finding:

A Doocy of a defamation ruling
Suits & Sentences
March 20, 2009

The 1st Circuit concluded that Doocy and Kilmeade were "negligent in their failure to adequately question the reliability" of the false article they relied upon, adding that this carelessness was "all the more distasteful" because it was accompanied by the "derisive contempt and ridicule" directed at Levesque. Nonetheless, while offering a sympathetic ear to Mr. Levesque, the appellate panel indicated there was no evidence that the Fox & Friends team had deliberately avoided the truth. Consequently, the school superindent -- to whom the Fox & Friends team later apologized -- couldn't overcome the high "actual malice" standard imposed on public figures.

This reminded me of a story I came across a few years ago about 2 FAUX News reporters for a station in Florida who sued for wrongful termination because they refused to air lies from Monsanto about Bovine Growth Hormone, from TPM Cafe:

Back in December of 1996, Jane Akre and her husband, Steve Wilson, were hired by FOX as a part of the Fox “Investigators” team at WTVT in Tampa Bay, Florida. ... But within a week, Fox executives and their attorneys wanted the reporters to use statements from Monsanto representatives that the reporters knew were false and to make other revisions to the story that were in direct conflict with the facts. Fox editors then tried to force Akre and Wilson to continue to produce the distorted story. When they refused and threatened to report Fox’s actions to the FCC, they were both fired.(Project Censored #12 1997)

Akre and Wilson sued the Fox station and on August 18, 2000, a Florida jury unanimously decided that Akre was wrongfully fired by Fox Television when she refused to broadcast (in the jury’s words) “a false, distorted or slanted story” about the widespread use of BGH in dairy cows. They further maintained that she deserved protection under Florida’s whistle blower law. Akre was awarded a $425,000 settlement. Inexplicably, however, the court decided that Steve Wilson, her partner in the case, was ruled not wronged by the same actions taken by FOX.

FOX appealed the case, and on February 14, 2003 the Florida Second District Court of Appeals unanimously overturned the settlement awarded to Akre. The Court held that Akre’s threat to report the station’s actions to the FCC did not deserve protection under Florida’s whistle blower statute, because Florida’s whistle blower law states that an employer must violate an adopted “law, rule, or regulation.” 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.