The Cellar - Bush orders copies of Constitution removed

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marichiko

10-07-2006 09:07 PM

Bush orders copies of Constitution removed

A Presidential Directive to remove all copies of the Constitution from both the White House and the offices of members of Congress was made public today by Faux News. The President stated that the document is out-dated and sounds like something a 60's commune of hippies would have written, not a sovereign nation like the US.

"The Constitution is for wimps," the President declared, "and I am no wimp. Do you think Al Gore or John Kerry would have had the guts to do something like this? It takes a REAL leader to make a decision such as this one."

"Did you know that the framers of the constitution powdered their hair and wore it in pony tails? You call people like that men? I call them bleeping, wierdo liberals whose agenda was to turn the US into a Commie nation. Well, the bastards failed, because for once, a US President has stood up to them."

"All members of Congress who fail to meet the requirements of this directive will be considered unlawful alien combatants and will be spending a vacation of undetermined length in Cuba."

"Oh, yeah. Monday, we will be invading Iran. Any reporter who askes me a question about any of this will be turned into Homeland Security for the safety of our country. Those who wish may now kiss my ring."

- Faux News, October 7, 2006

xoxoxoBruce

10-07-2006 11:29 PM

You should make it clear that this is a piece of humor.:eyebrow:

Can't tell by just reading it.

ashke

10-08-2006 12:31 AM

"Faux News" gives a clue...

marichiko

10-08-2006 01:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

You should make it clear that this is a piece of humor.:eyebrow:

can't tell by just reading it.

Sorry about that. I still can't believe all the stuff that's going on. But not to worry, in another 6 months it will be REAL news. You just heard it here first.:haha:

MaggieL

10-08-2006 07:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ashke

"Faux News" gives a clue...

It would be a better clue if so many liberals didn't use "Faux News" as a moniker for Fox News. (Obviously if it doesn't have the same relentless liberal slant of MSNBC and CNN it must be "faux".)

jinx	10-08-2006 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaggieL

(Obviously if it doesn't have the same relentless liberal slant of MSNBC and CNN it must be "faux".)

No, it's "faux" becuase they make shit up - and have gone to court at least 6 times to protect their right to do so.

MaggieL

10-08-2006 08:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jinx

No, it's "faux" becuase they make shit up ...

Citations, please?

ashke

10-08-2006 10:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaggieL

It would be a better clue if so many liberals didn't use "Faux News" as a moniker for Fox News. (Obviously if it doesn't have the same relentless liberal slant of MSNBC and CNN it must be "faux".)

Oh... They do that? Hmmm... Okay, I didn't know. (In the other post where "Faux News" was mentioned in the title, I thought that was just a fitting title for that Foley mess. ^^;;; Didn't realize its use of was widespread amongst liberals.)

jinx	10-08-2006 10:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaggieL

Citations, please?

Google: Fox rBGH, and choose your favorite source.

xoxoxoBruce

10-08-2006 12:50 PM

ok jinx, I did that.

Quote:

"We Paid $3 Billion For These Stations. We'll Decide What the News Is."

:whofart:

Undertoad

10-08-2006 01:23 PM

That story/lawsuit has nothing to do with the Fox News Channel. It's about the news department at a Florida Fox TV network affiliate.

xoxoxoBruce

10-08-2006 01:37 PM

But aren't the affiliates where Fox gets fed it's stories from? At least the in country stuff, not the international. :confused:

jinx	10-08-2006 01:37 PM

Nothing?

Quote:

According to the suit, WTVT originally reviewed the investigative reports and scheduled them to air in four parts beginning February 24, 1997 and had even launched an extensive radio ad campaign to draw attention to the series. But virtually on the eve of the broadcast, the station pulled the reports after Monsanto hired a renowned New York attorney to complain to a top official of Channel 13’s parent company, Fox television. The attorney’s letter was filed with the complaint which is now posted at the web site.

Local station management again carefully reviewed the investigative reports, found no errors in any of the reporting, re-scheduled them to air a week later, and even offered Monsanto the opportunity to be interviewed a second time, the suit says. Instead, the chemical maker responded with another threatening letter to the President of Fox’s network news division and the WTVT reports were postponed again.

Watch on YouTube.

jinx	10-08-2006 02:20 PM

Quote:

FOX appealed the case, and on February 14, 2003 the Florida Second District Court of Appeals unanimously overturned the settlement awarded to Akre. The Court held that Akre’s threat to report the station’s actions to the FCC did not deserve protection under Florida’s whistle blower statute, because Florida’s whistle blower law states that an employer must violate an adopted “law, rule, or regulation." In a stunningly narrow interpretation of FCC rules, the Florida Appeals court claimed that the FCC policy against falsification of the news does not rise to the level of a "law, rule, or regulation," it was simply a "policy." Therefore, it is up to the station whether or not it wants to report honestly.

During their appeal, FOX asserted that there are no written rules against distorting news in the media. They argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves. Fox attorneys did not dispute Akre’s claim that they pressured her to broadcast a false story, they simply maintained that it was their right to do so.

Undertoad

10-08-2006 02:29 PM

So, not the Fox News Channel.

glad we cleared that up

MaggieL

10-08-2006 05:47 PM

So, the whistleblower law doesn't apply every time an journalist employee disagrees with what his employer deems '"true news". How shocking.

It makes legal sense for the station's attorneys to decide to adopt the strategy of proving in court that they get to decide what to publish on their station (easy) than to prove what's actually true in the story in question (hard).

The coverage you cite of this court case is a true model of journalistic integrity and objectivity too. So...jinx...you'd feel justified publishing your original statement as news with what you finally offered as citations to back it up? And you claim *Fox* makes things up? Pot, kettle, etc.

jinx	10-08-2006 06:33 PM

I feel justified in publishing my opinion of why I don't trust Fox with anything more important than the Simpsons. If you choose not to tune in to me each evening to get your news Maggie, I completely understand your position.

But to suggest that Fox News on WTVT and the Fox News Channel have nothing to do with each other confuses the hell out of me. Not clear at all.
WTVT didn't have a problem with the story until the President of Fox's network news division was threatened by Monstanto.... help me understand this UT.

9th Engineer

10-08-2006 06:36 PM

I don't like the sound of that whole deal at all, definately doesn't reflect well on any and all involved. But I also hold no delusions as to where else this stuff goes on, just means that the 'truth' must be gently teased from as many and as varied sources as one can access.

Undertoad

10-08-2006 07:22 PM

There is a corporate structure called "Fox" which is an outgrowth, IIRC, of 20th Century Fox the movie studio. There is a network of television affiliates, previously independent, which are part of the Fox network in that they have decided to broadcast the television shows of 20th C. Fox.

In Philadelphia, channel 29 is the Fox affiliiate. You might remember when it was not a Fox affiliate. It started its homegrown TV broadcast "The Ten O'Clock News" before it was a Fox station. It has mostly the same employees as when it was not a Fox affiliate. As an affiliate it is part of the Fox family.

Fox News and the Fox News Channel are also outgrowths of 20th C. Fox. As part of the same corporate umbrella they have some of the same DNA. But only some. It has taken a long time for the affiliates to connect with Fox News and the Channel. These days I know they do share some programming.. reluctantly.

If the sins of the affiliate are to be considered the sins of the corporate umbrella, then we should not visit Disneyworld if we don't like Lisa Thomas-Laury, or not trust Nightline if we don't like the entertainment of cartoon mice.

jinx	10-08-2006 07:47 PM

Ok. But that isn't what happened here. It was the directive from Fox, not the affiliate station to pull/change the story.
The Akers sued the affiliate becuase that's who they worked for, but wasn't it the corporate umberlla who sinned?

Undertoad

10-08-2006 09:36 PM

The Project Censored story also confuses Fox, Fox Television, Fox News and the local affiliate, as if all entities are one and the same. They are wrong to do so.

xoxoxoBruce

10-08-2006 10:05 PM

"sins of the affiliate"? The sinner was the corporate parent, the same parent that sets the tone for all the Fox divisions.
I can understand stopping a story they had scheduled to avoid offending a sponsor....I don't approve but I understand.
But that said, ordering the affiliate to falsify the story, deliberately lie to the public, is unforgivable. Especially on an item that affects the health of their viewers.
I'm sure it was a corporate decision to go to court.

It's hard to believe that the same corporate scum don't influence all the divisions.:eyebrow:

Undertoad

10-08-2006 10:10 PM

The corporate parent was not Fox or Fox TV. It was New World Communications, of Tampa, FL.

Hippikos

10-09-2006 04:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaggieL

Citations, please?

Declaring Foley a Democrat?

headsplice

10-09-2006 09:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaggieL

Citations, please?

Bill O'Reilly.

MaggieL

10-09-2006 09:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by headsplice

Bill O'Reilly.

Snarkism isn't a citation.

rkzenrage

10-09-2006 11:12 AM

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2.../th1_r3_c1.gif

jinx	10-09-2006 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The corporate parent was not Fox or Fox TV. It was New World Communications, of Tampa, FL.

Where are you getting this? From what I've read, the Monsanto letter was sent to Roger Ailes.

Quote:

Roger Eugene Ailes (born May 15, 1940) is a former Republican political consultant and the current president of Fox News Channel and chairman of the Fox Television Stations Group. He oversees My Network TV and Fox News Channel, which he created and manages. Ailes is most well known for his creation of the Willie Horton ads which attacked Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis during the 1988 campaign and his managing of the Fox News Network.

MaggieL

10-09-2006 07:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jinx

Where are you getting this? From what I've read, the Monsanto letter was sent to Roger Ailes.

A detailed review of the case and your heroes Wilson and Akre is available here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Strange Case of Steve Wilson

When the reporters’ vitriolic attack on station management began, Fox didn’t even own WTVT. Murdoch’s conglomerate merely inherited the altercation when it assumed control of the station.

jinx	10-09-2006 08:02 PM

My heroes... of course. Actually, it was my dislike of Monsanto and their ideas of better living thru GE and Roundup that got me interested in the Fox case in the first place, way back when it was current news. Writing off Fox as a news source was a secondary reaction to the information, and really, I couldn't give fuck all about the journalists.
Do you have something to add to the discussion? Because I'm not going to click your link just becuase you went to the trouble of putting a quick snarky buzz in front of it.

Undertoad

10-09-2006 09:12 PM

It's all in the decision (warning, PDF)

Quote:

New World Communications of Tampa, Inc., d/b/a WTVT-TV, a subsidiary of Fox Television, challenges a judgment entered against it for violating Florida's private sector whistle-blower's statute, section 448.102, Florida Statutes (Supp. 1998). We reverse.

In December 1996, WTVT hired the appellee, Jane Akre, and her husband, Steve Wilson, as a husband-and-wife investigative reporting team. Shortly after Akre and Wilson arrived at WTVT, they began working on a story about the use of synthetic bovine growth hormone (“BGH”) in Florida dairy cattle. Their work on this story led to what could be characterized as an eight-month tug-of-war between the reporters and WTVT’s management and lawyers over the content of the story. Each time the station asked Wilson and Akre to provide supporting documentation for statements in the story or to make changes in the content of the story, the reporters accused the station of attempting to distort the story to favor the manufacturer of BGH.

In September 1997, WTVT notified Akre and Wilson that it was exercising its option to terminate their employment contracts without cause. Akre and Wilson responded in writing to WTVT threatening to file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) alleging that the station had “illegally” edited the still unfinished BGH report in violation of an FCC policy against federally licensed broadcasters deliberately distorting the news. The parties never resolved their differences regarding the content of the story, and consequently, the story never aired.

In April 1998, Akre and Wilson sued WTVT alleging, among other things, claims under the whistle-blower's statute. Those claims alleged that their terminations had been in retaliation for their resisting WTVT’s attempts to distort or suppress the BGH story and for threatening to report the alleged news distortion to the FCC. Akre also brought claims for declaratory relief and for breach of contract. After a four-week trial, a jury found against Wilson on all of his claims. The trial court directed a verdict against Akre on her breach of contract claim, Akre abandoned her claim for declaratory relief, and the trial court let her whistle-blower claims go to the jury. The jury rejected all of Akre’s claims except her claim that WTVT retaliated against her in response to her threat to disclose the alleged news distortion to the FCC. The jury awarded Akre $425,000 in damages.

lumberjim

10-09-2006 10:19 PM

opinion?

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