ciphergoth | Likely plan

OK, with everyone's help, I think I know what my timetable up until the end of May is now. Contrary to what I said before, I shall be in London on the 22nd!

Update: I've just noticed I forgot about the very existence of Saturday 31 May 2003. All guesses from there on are out of whack. Oops.

Edinburgh		Date		London
		1 March	C
		8 March	C
Gigantor, Finsternis	C	15 March		Club L'Amour, B-Movie
Lisa seeing Jackie, Vain		22 March	C	Jess
Lisa seeing Jackie	C	29 March		Calling, Lisa's hospital appointment
Covenant, my and Alison's anniversary, Ascension	C	5 April		Mary's birthday in Calais, David F's birthday, B-Movie, Covenant (Elektrofest)
Whitby	C	12 April		Calling, Club Lash
Public Holiday, Psychophile		19 April	C	Club L'Amour (might be quiet), David and Laura in Edinburgh, Public Holiday
Finsternis		26 April	C	God is from Mars, You are a Pirate
Jess in Edinburgh, Public Holiday, Ascension, All About Eve	C	3 May		Public Holiday
Gigantor	C	10 May
Public Holiday, Vain		17 May	C	Play party?
Finsternis		24 May	C	Club L'Amour, Public Holiday
	L	7 June
Vain	L	14 June
Finsternis		21 June	L
Ascension		28 June	L
	L	5 July
	L	12 July
		19 July	L
		26 July	L
	L	2 August
	L	9 August
		16 August	L
		23 August	C	BiCon
	L	30 August

C = Confirmed, L = Likely

ULP: US Appellate Court Rules Media Can Legally Lie, reversing a $425,000 judgement in favour of a journalist who was fired for threatening to report that she was pressured into lying. (from jwz)

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh thats quite an impressive little table you've created there!

Impressive organisation!

See you in Whitby ...

Eeek! A table!

Anyway, from a freedom of speech point of view it seems obvious that lying should be perfectly legal in a media context. Lying should only be illegal in a contractual context, and people should learn to distinguish the two. Of course, if that view is adopted, libel or any other "damages" against news organizatios should be thrown out too. There is the hypocricy at present.

As for whether that would make for good government, I don't know. The problem with the major news media is that they seem plausible for most of the time, and so people believe them. This is partly due to them saying a lot of true things, and partly because dissenting voices are silenced. I think that full freedom of speech (lying and all) would result in people being better informed on average, but I may be optimistic.

Pavlos

I'm not sure this is a free speech issue; it's an employment law issue. Fox should indeed have the right to broadcast distorted or outright false stories, but that doesn't necessarily mean they should have the right to fire the employees who blow the whistle on it...

I think that qualifies you for a private jet. Personally, I'd hate to be that organised. I'm usually pretty booked up for the week ahead, but months would drive me crazy.

Why? Presumably the employees are obliged to keep confidential what the news network knows and does. Unless the network is asking them to do something unlawful or very harmful to the public, in which case whistle-blowing should be protected.

You could argue that the behaviour is very harmful to the public, or perhaps that the network misled the journalist when they hired him, by not explaining that they lie routinely about the news.

Pavlos

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.

Can I book you for the night of the next general election?

:-)

C.

*grin* sadly we won't get to entertain ourselves the way we did last time :-)

Likely plan

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Well, it's either free or it isn't

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Can I book you for???

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