Soapbox

Seeing is not Believing

It’s tough to know what to believe any more.

It used to be that it you read it in the newspaper or saw it on the news, you could believe it. It might be just one side of the story, but at least you could assume it was true.

No longer. When a story appears in the paper, we don’t know if it was written by modern-day Woodward and Bernsteins or by a local Jason Blair, who stayed home and made up interviews, quotes or even entire stories. Are the facts and figures they quoted accurate, or were the scientists and economists some of those pressured by the Bush administration to change their data to fit the Bush agenda?

Things are just as bad on television. Is that snappy, upbeat story on U.S. policy you just saw a real report from the TV station, or was it one of hundreds of government propaganda pieces, paid for with your tax dollars and passed off as real news? Is the commentator being paid with your taxes to say a new Bush policy is great, or does he genuinely think it is good for America?

And now we have to wonder if the headlines are even true at all. It turns out that there are stricter requirements for truth in advertising than in the news, a fact that Fox News is only too happy to exploit but would rather you didn’t know about.

This story is found on a site called “Project Censored�, because the mainstream media wasn’t interested in covering it, for reasons that may become apparent once you read about it. http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/11.html

In the late 1990’s, Jane Akre and her husband, Steve Wilson were hired by Fox to investigate and produce a series on Bovine Growth Hormone in the nation’s milk supply. Fox was initially happy with their finished product, but within a week insisted that changes be made. They wanted to add some statements by Monsanto Corp (which had appeared in an unfavorable light) and several other revisions. Akre and Wilson refused, pointing out that based on their research, they knew these statements and revisions were false. “So what?� said Fox. When the pair threatened to tell the FCC if Fox made those changes, they were fired.

The pair sued, claiming that they were fired for “whistle-blowing” and so deserved legal protection. 5 other large media groups filed briefs in support of Fox’s position that Akre and Wilson were not whistle-blowers, because Fox has a right to lie on the news if they want to. Really.

In 2003 the Florida Appeals Court overturned the earlier jury verdict and found in favor of Fox News! Incredibly, they ruled that the FCC regulations against falsification of news is just a recommendation, and not an actual rule. The media doesn’t actually have to tell the truth on the news unless they want to, the court said. Fox, who never denied that they tried to insert false statements into the story or that they fired the pair for refusing to do so, felt so vindicated by the verdict that they have sued Akre and Wilson for court costs to pay for Fox’s high-powered corporate attorney.

The FCC had no comment or reaction to the ruling that they care more about honesty and accuracy in a margarine commerical than in the evening news.

This story is stunning in its scope, and rammifications for TV viewers. Yet have you heard anything about this story on any other networks’ “newsâ€?? I guess we have to put that word in quotation marks now, since we can’t know if what they are saying is true, and therefore news, or mere fiction; some giant Republican, big-business soap opera.

Of course you haven’t heard, and you won’t. Why would the media want us to know that they consider it part of their first amendment rights to lie and pass it off as truth? We can only wonder how it jibes with Fox’s claim to be “Fair and Balancedâ€? for them to go to court to defend their right to lie if they want to.

So what’s a viewer to do? My only suggestion: go read a book. At least in the library the stories that are made-up go on the “fiction� shelf.