courtesy of Broadcast Blues

courtesy of The Corporation

UPDATED:Many news agencies lie and distort facts, not many have the guts to admit it...in court...positioning the First Amendment as their defense!

The attorneys for Fox, owned by media baron Rupert Murdoch, successfully argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves. We are pushing for a consumer protection solution that labels news content according to its adherence to ethical journalism standards that have been codified by the Society of Professional Journalists (Ethics: spj.org).
A News Quality Rating System and Content Labeling approach, follows a tradition of consumer protection product labeling, that is very familiar to Americans. The ratings are anti-censorship and can benefit consumers.

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We are reminded of the importance of the news media through the words of the slain President John F. Kennedy. We seem to have fallen so far from that period in history. For your appraisal, we offer a view of the Huffington Post's query of Neil Cavuto's motives. We hope you will be moved to sign the petition for a news quality rating system to improve journalism and restore an ethical framework for journalists to follow.

(from the Huffington Post) A clip from Your World With Neil Cavuto raises many troubling questions. Questions like: what is a serious news show doing interviewing The Apprentice contestant Omarosa, circa 2008? Why is Neil Cavuto pretending she is an authority

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Editors Note: We are replaying this episode in journalism as an example of how we can lose control of truth. Our National Amnesia does not serve us well when we leave such matters unaddressed. Fox News loses this case initially as this story indicates, but later wins the appeal giving them the okay to lie to the public in their news reports. In many ways this is a large corporation testing the resolve of all Americans' capacity to check abuses of power. This is made more troublesome by the fact that the abuses are the actions of the press. Ironically the press is supposed to represent the publics interest by placing a check on abuses of power. When the press is the "abuser", what checks can be placed on it? We hope you'll be moved to take action by supporting media reform today.
Sign our petition to create a News Quality Rating System.
Florida Reporters Win Trial Over Fox TV and Monsanto Suppression of rBGH Story (and lose the case later)

Florida Reporters Awarded $500,000 in Damages after FOX TV Caved into Monsanto and Killed an Investigative Series on the controversial recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH)
AGRIBUSINESS EXAMINER EXTRA August 21, 2000 A.V. Krebs, Editor\Publisher Monitoring the activities of corporate agribusiness from a public interest perspective
Florida Jury Concludes: FOX PRESSURED AKRE\WILSON TO BROADCAST "FALSE, DISTORTED OR SLANTED NEWS REPORT" TERMINATED AKRE AWARDED $450,000 DAMAGES
By Steve Wilson
TAMPA (August 18) After listening to all the evidence for five full weeks and deliberating more than six hours, a state court jury has agreed with what fired journalists Steve Wilson and Jane Akre said long ago: FOX Television pressured them to broadcast a false, distorted or slanted news report.
The jury awarded $425,000 in damages after finding the evidence proved that FOX took retaliatory personnel action against Akre because she threatened to blow the whistle to the Federal Communications Commission.

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August 15th, 2007 by Loren Baker, Editor | 40 Comments ( re-posted from Search Engine Journal )

Arthur Bergman at O’Reilly Radar has the lowdown on some changes Fox News has been making to the Wikipedia entries of their critics and competition (like Al Franken) which were traced back to a Fox News IP address.

a selected comment from O'Reilly radar points out the following evidence:

cyboman [08.14.07 08:53 AM]
As far as I can tell Fox is a propaganda outlet [pause for gasps]. For what its worth you can see everything that user has done by going here in case you weren't aware.


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We've been alerted that there is a group that is gathering the usual flock of extreme conservatives to maintaing the status quo of blathering infotainment media. In as much as we support the Constitutional tenets of free speech and a free press, we don't want the current situation maintained while it fails to extract the appropriate public interest obligation from FCC licensees. The American public is not being fairly compensated for use of the public airwaves. This needs to be addressed.

So we provide this information for your amusement and to let you know a bit about how the opposition is positioned.

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CeaseSPIN.org agrees that ethical behavior is inherently affected by this type of business. This unfortunately means more bad news for journalism down the road if citizens don't take action soon. Obviously, the News Quality Rating System is the perfect counter weight to this kind of "rigging the system" strategy.
Is Abrams, in reading the current trend in journalism, in essence opening a talent agency to sell friendly trustworthy news personalities, to the highest bidders, to act as spokespersons for corporate interests on news programs? If so this is an alarming development for the field of journalism. If you don't believe that this is possible, read their "Mission Statement".

Abrams Research: Dan Abrams Launches Media Strategy Firm (excerpt from Huffington Post article)
Working on media strategies with businesses could raise ethical red flags for journalists who were required to be detached and objective about the subjects they covered. Mr. Abrams said the company would "bend over backwards to make sure that there are no conflicts or ethical issues that arise."
He said he planned to broaden the network of experts beyond traditional journalists, employing media analysts, bloggers and others who might not operate under such stringent rules. He said he was especially interested in connecting bloggers with businesses that had trouble dealing with online media.

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Bill Moyers, one of the founding fathers of Media Reform, updates the cause. His warning is nothing short of chilling. We are imperiled even beyond what today's conditions bear out, if we don't act.

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Yellow journalism seems to be where we’re at, but we don’t have to settle for it.
What is “yellow journalism”?
Yellow journalism is journalism that downplays legitimate news in favor of eye-catching headlines that sell more newspapers. It may feature exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, sensationalism, or unprofessional practices by news media organizations or journalists.

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