Holy Diver

Canadian regulators announced last week they would reject efforts by Canada's right-wing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news.

http://mwcnews.net/focus/politics/90...of-canada.html

1st thing: Shouldn't we have a law like this?
2nd thing: Tells you all you need to know about FOX

Canada's Radio Act requires that "a licenser may not broadcast ... any false or misleading news."

reflexblue

We do need a law like that. I think we had one regulating radio but was done away with in the '90's.

Drewski

1st thing: This law doesnt sound like a half bad idea, but with any new law, comes some "made up" board that regulates it, unless of course it fell to the FCC to enforce.

2nd thing: While FOX has more than its fair share of "dishonest" reporting being sold as news/fact, certainly not by any stretch of the imagination the only culprit, so lets be sure (and the linked article didnt do this) to call a spade and spade; most news programming in this country, whether at the channel or personality level, has some amount of slant/lies/agenda etc. sold as news.

3rd thing: At some point the consumer (the American viewing public) needs to smarten up and realize what they are buying, in this case news. We shouldnt build regulatations for stupid people.

4th thing: Based on what the linked article states (specifically paragraph 2 and 3) I would go out on a limb and say that if we had this law now, and the current media/news selections remained the same, some of the only news we would get is the BBC, which while not a bad thing in and of itself, certainly paints a sad picture of where "news" in this country has gone.

Patsfanin Philly

It's all your perspective. Here's how 2 local Philadelphia news stations ( one ABC and one CBS) covered the story of a police bust that entered the wrong house ,resulting in a dog being shot. Would you ban one of these stations?????


Philadelphia Police Officer Forced To Shoot Attacking Dog In FrankfordCBS Philly


>>>>PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – A police officer was forced to shoot a dog after the animal apparently attacked him in Northeast Philadelphia Monday morning<<<,
----------------------------------------------------------------

Officer shoots neighbor's dog in Mantua drug raid | 6abc.com.


<<<<MANTUA - February 24, 2011 (WPVI) -- The Philadelphia Police Department is apologizing after a case of mistaken identity ended with man's dog being shot by an officer Wednesday night.
The narcotic task force was out Wednesday night, but when the police moved in to arrest the accused dealer, a tragic mistake occurred.

"Obviously a mistake was made, and we are definitely acknowledging that," said Lt. Ray Evers of the Philadelphia Police.<<<<<<

chicowalker

Problem I have with it is that it bans mistakes by including "false" news.

If it's only lying or misleading, what is the burden of proof for intent? And how would that be different from our existing slander / libel laws?

Holy Diver

Intent is the enforcement of our laws. Proving malice.

So its subjective to some extent here.

We would need some kind of evidence that the network was deliberatly trying to lie, which would seem easy enough with all of the talking points that get emailed to the minions.



This shouldn't even NEED to be a law, its the 1st rule of journalism, and detective work. Just the facts. Somewhere along the way we as a society were either told not to care, or simply stopped caring. Its what gets people angry at teacher's wages, and healthcare instead of being livid at wall street and the redistribution of wealth to the top.



U-S-A!

patsfan13

So who gets to play God with the press and define who is true and what is a lie?


Funny how tolerant lefties jump at the chance to impose fascist news control to prevent dissent....

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