Fox News Sued for Sharing False Information

[Orbitus]

https://timesofsandiego.com/business...avirus-a-hoax/

Washington League for Increased Transparency and Ethics, Never heard of these guys, but they are suing for calling the Coronavirus a hoax.

https://www.thewrap.com/fox-news-coronavirus-lawsuit/
https://timesofsandiego.com/business...avirus-a-hoax/

Might not go anywhere, but I sure hope it does. That way Trump will stop parroting them every chance he can get.

[Breccia]

Might not go anywhere

It won't, but I hope it goes to trial. FOX News probably won't lose the case, but if the plaintiff is serious, this might rattle them.

[Templar 331]

I'll give you their defense:

"We didn't say it was a hoax, we just implied it and brought people on our show who said they think it is a hoax."

[beanman12345]

It won't go anywhere, but it should be criminal what they did.

[Xeones]

Fox had stepped back on their commentary recently because this was invertible with how irresponsibly they were covering this.

[cubby]

https://timesofsandiego.com/business...avirus-a-hoax/

Washington League for Increased Transparency and Ethics, Never heard of these guys, but they are suing for calling the Coronavirus a hoax.

https://www.thewrap.com/fox-news-coronavirus-lawsuit/
https://timesofsandiego.com/business...avirus-a-hoax/

Might not go anywhere, but I sure hope it does. That way Trump will stop parroting them every chance he can get.

I hope whomever is bankrolling the group has the money to go the distance. Would be a very intriguing case if it ever saw a jury/appeal.

[Machismo]

Fox should be free to speak their lies.

We should be free to call them out for the shitty humans that they are, and scream from the top of our lungs that they got people killed.

[Themius]

Fox should be free to speak their lies.

We should be free to call them out for the shitty humans that they are, and scream from the top of our lungs that they got people killed.

How about no?

Reason being the bolded part.

Free speech by spreading false information leading to literal deaths is a step way too far.

[Machismo]

How about no?

Reason being the bolded part.

Free speech by spreading false information leading to literal deaths is a step way too far.

Then call them murderers.

[beanman12345]

Then call them murderers.

So they should be free to be murderers?

[Machismo]

So they should be free to be murderers?

I'm saying they have freedom of speech. They are free to lie, and they are free to push false information.

It makes them trolls.

Treat Fox news as such from here on out.Treat anyone who watches them, and listens to them as the gullible fools that they are.

[beanman12345]

I'm saying they have freedom of speech. They are free to lie, and they are free to push false information.

It makes them trolls.

Treat Fox news as such from here on out.Treat anyone who watches them, and listens to them as the gullible fools that they are.

No, I'm gonna call them exactly what you said we should call them, murderers. But you go defend murderers hiding behind "free speech" bullshit.

[Machismo]

No, I'm gonna call them exactly what you said we should call them, murderers. But you go defend murderers hiding behind "free speech" bullshit.

Great, call them murderers, I support your freedom of speech, as well. Call everyone who watches Fox news any name you want.

[beanman12345]

Great, call them murderers, I support your freedom of speech, as well. Call everyone who watches Fox news any name you want.

Freedom of speech isn't freedom of consequences. It's why it's such a bullshit argument to hide behind.

[Omega10]

Fox should be free to speak their lies.

We should be free to call them out for the shitty humans that they are, and scream from the top of our lungs that they got people killed.

In theory you have a point. In practice, a lot of people in the SE US, where Fox is most influential, are going to die. I guess you are saying that all of these deaths are worth it so that Fox can lie repeatedly to the country.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/vi...djT?li=BBnbfcL

Title: Virus hot spots in South poised for disproportionate suffering

St. John the Baptist Parish, just southeast of Baton Rouge, La., has a population of just over 43,000 — and the highest per capita coronavirus mortality rate in the nation.

Frantic local officials instituted an overnight curfew just this week and are begging residents to stay home. But in largely rural Southern states like Louisiana — where social distancing has been spotty, widespread testing is unavailable and hospitals are poorer and farther apart — the response may be coming too late to avoid a public health crisis as bad as the one now engulfing New York.

They listened to Fox so they deserve to die?

Hot spots like St. John the Baptist are erupting across the South. The virus is also poised to consume the area around Norfolk, Va., a rural county in Tennessee just north of Nashville and parts of southwest Georgia near Albany, according to models assembled by Columbia University epidemiologists. And without the resources of major cities, these areas are poised to see disproportionate suffering, economic hardship and death when cases peak.

“It will be of no surprise to me if our numbers continue to grow every single day as I continue to push for more testing,” parish President Jaclyn Hotard told residents in a tele-town hall Wednesday night. “I can’t stress enough to our residents to take this seriously.”

Local health officials are unsuccessfully trying to make the case the Trump and Fox are wrong... well just flat out lying... and that they should take the virus threat seriously.

Dougherty County, Ga., home to Albany, has about 90,000 people and more than 500 cases and 30 deaths, according to the state health department. Lee County, just to the north, has 115 cases and eight deaths in a population of 30,000. The state, where Gov. Brian Kemp issued a stay-at-home order on Wednesday, well after many other states, isn’t expected to see a peak for another three weeks, according to the University of Washington model.

Local officials fear a repeat in their communities. In Robertson County, Tenn, just north of Nashville, there have been 51 cases, or nearly 74 per 1,000 residents, one of the highest per capita rates in the state.

"I’m concerned that folks just aren’t doing the distancing they need to do,” said Mayor Billy Vogle, who has been pleading daily with residents to stay home. “We’re going to have to get ready for what’s coming.”

A couple of southern smaller cities (large towns?) have been hit quite hard. And even here, even with it being pretty bad already, well read carefully the statement of the Mayor: We're GOING TO HAVE TO get ready. Meaning they haven't really started yet.

President Donald Trump last month suggested that red, primarily rural areas where he enjoys some of his strongest support have largely avoided the pandemic because they’ve had better local leadership than states on both coasts that were slammed early and hard by the virus.

Trump opined these red states should be allowed to return to work sooner than the rest of the country.

But public health experts say they're most worried about those very areas. Arkansas, South Carolina and Texas do not have statewide stay-at-home orders. Florida and Mississippi enacted one only this week. That puts those states in the virus’ crosshairs, said Nirav Shah, a senior scholar at Stanford University’s Clinical Excellence Research Center.

The Fox lies and the Trump lies have caused many US deaths, and will continue to cause a lot more over the next few months. Yelling FIRE in a theater is not legal. This should be prosecuted much more severely than someone yelling FIRE in a crowded movie theater.

[Lenonis]

I know it won't happen but I'd love that depraved company go under and all the depraved figureheads never able to find a job again.

[Machismo]

Freedom of speech isn't freedom of consequences. It's why it's such a bullshit argument to hide behind.

Yes, the consequences are you being able to insult them and call them out for their bullshit. If youa re talking about government consequences, then that is definitely not freedom of speech.

- - - Updated - - -

In theory you have a point. In practice, a lot of people in the SE US, where Fox is most influential, are going to die. I guess you are saying that all of these deaths are worth it so that Fox can lie repeatedly to the country.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/vi...djT?li=BBnbfcL

Title: Virus hot spots in South poised for disproportionate suffering



They listened to Fox so they deserve to die?





Local health officials are unsuccessfully trying to make the case the Trump and Fox are wrong... well just flat out lying... and that they should take the virus threat seriously.





A couple of southern smaller cities (large towns?) have been hit quite hard. And even here, even with it being pretty bad already, well read carefully the statement of the Mayor: We're GOING TO HAVE TO get ready. Meaning they haven't really started yet.



The Fox lies and the Trump lies have caused many US deaths, and will continue to cause a lot more over the next few months. Yelling FIRE in a theater is not legal. This should be prosecuted much more severely than someone yelling FIRE in a crowded movie theater.

Great, if stupid people want to ignore the experts, and listen to Fox news, then they can suffer the consequences.

[beanman12345]

Yes, the consequences are you being able to insult them and call them out for their bullshit. If youa re talking about government consequences, then that is definitely not freedom of speech.

No, the consequences are that people are literally dying because of their misinformation they spread. You defending murderers makes you a horrible person.

[Endus]

It won't go anywhere, but it should be criminal what they did.

If spitting on/licking things in grocery stores and saying you've got Coronavirus is terrorism (and people are being charged with exactly that), then surely we can make a case that pushing that kind of disinformation is, itself, a terrorist propaganda campaign intended to create more deaths and suffering.

This shouldn't be a lawsuit. This should be federal charges that put executives and frontline talking heads in prison, for years if not decades.

[Fincayra]

So I'm confused. Were they downplaying the virus or fearmongering in the early days? I'll be the first to admit that I didn't really watch too much news when this thing broke, so I can't really give my own impressions. I did watch some news though, and I tend to stay away from their evening shows because that's basically propaganda (all 3 networks, the world news during the day is a lot better.) I don't really remember "fear mongering" or downplaying except for Trump himself, saying the "we have it contained" or "it'll go away in the Spring" crap. I simply don't remember.

But what I have found is this one article by Mediamatters (someone who obviously hates Fox) saying they fearmongered about the infection rate of the virus.

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-fri...ed-viral-video

I also found this.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/misin...b68f86c8ccbfee

This particular article does little to highlight the matter at hand, but it does go into some of the hoaxes mentioned in the mediamatters article.

Here's a beauty: good facts about why Trump's early response to the outbreak were slow. Except, they were still calling his travel bans xenophobic and nationalistic. Wonder how big a problem we'd have now if he hadn't have done that ONE good thing?

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...avirus/606610/

What do I think about our unique situation in the US? Our country is essentially 50 smaller countries all under the umbrella of the federal government. The only place I can see that's even remotely close to that is the EU as a whole. The US is too big for one single strategy to work to combat this thing, and we're seeing the flaws in that happening now. I'm not an expert in these things, and it's a lot easier to say that we should have done this or that after the fact. Places in the northern midwest with very few cases should be practicing caution, but not complete lock down, which is indeed what we've been seeing for the most part. As for federally, we definitely need agencies dedicated to protecting this nation from things like this that can't be defunded or dissolved by the stroke of one man's pen. We need a massive stockpile of every thing that we could possibly need to survive as a nation (non-perishable) for at least a month or two while we retool assembly lines or order replacements. The fact that we had to rely on the Chinese Communist Party to supply this country (if not for our corporations manufacturing things now) before this was a massive gaping hole in our defense.

As for Fox calling it a hoax? I thought that originated with Trump calling the media's coverage of his response to the pandemic a hoax. I checked all three articles, and citations for Fox doing any of the above were not to be found. I assume evidence will be forthcoming in the trial, but they have a high bar to prove unless they have a paper trail showing they knew their coverage was false.