While I'm all in favour of free speech, I don't feel that it applies to the extent that news media, which is implicitly presented as truth or at least impartial observation, should be allowed to knowingly lie outright. With the exception of occasional satire that's later or beforehand clearly marked as such, e.g. april fools stories, news media ought to be obliged to report the facts to the best of their knowledge, as this is an implicit and indeed, at times, explicit claim of those media. It would be hard if not almost impossible to enforce, and there would have to be a clear distinction between the news media and the rest of the media, but... hmm... sod it, maybe this is all a bit too open to abuse. You could just let people decide for themselves the reliability of the media, but I still find the idea that you can present something as truth in a trusted form when it isn't true at all abhorrent.
On a slightly different tack, a possible benefit of this ruling is that it may erode some of the unwarranted trust in the impartiality of the media that so many people seem to have.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2003-03-08 08:03 am (UTC)On a slightly different tack, a possible benefit of this ruling is that it may erode some of the unwarranted trust in the impartiality of the media that so many people seem to have.