corrente

Each is given a bag of tools
Shapeless LIES, and a book of rules.

I bring up the following example of the Fox Newzi corporativo's love of law suits against anyone who doesn't tote the company bale, which backtracks into pre-blogger days, and because A.V. Krebs in the current issue of The Progressive Populist journal revisits the slippery affair. Explanation follows.

From the October 1, 2003 issue of The Progessive Populist: In Whom Can We Trust? - A.V. Krebs writes:

For the corporate state and its political minions such public distrust, apathy and self-centeredness is a heaven sent blessing for as we have seen in recent years fewer and fewer people are taking part in the democratic process, leaving a small cadre of fascist plutocrats to govern and regulate our republic's affairs. No longer do we see national policy dictating politics, but rather egocentric politics dictating national policy.

A large measure of the blame for this condition can be laid at the doorstep of the national media upon which people read, listen to and watch each day. Rather than live up to its responsibility to act as a reliable "fourth branch of government" it has become for the most part simply a messenger boy for the ruling plutocracy. Meanwhile, the public is left in the dark and uninformed of the facts that go toward the formation of a responsible citizenry.

[...]

The husband and wife investigative team of Akre and Wilson had prepared a WTVT/Fox 13 documentary on how Florida dairymen had been secretly injecting the genetically engineered rBGH into their cows and how Florida supermarkets quietly reneged on promises not to sell milk from treated cows until the hormone gained widespread acceptance by consumers.

In a subsequent law suit the reporters charged in detail that Fox TV, after being strongly pressured by Monsanto, violated the state's whistleblower act by firing the journalists for refusing to broadcast false reports and threatening to report the station's conduct to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

A Florida jury later concluded that Akre was indeed pressured by Fox lawyers and managers to broadcast what the jury agreed was "a false, distorted or slanted story" and was fired for threatening to blow the whistle and awarded her a $425,000 judgement. However, that decision was later reversed by a Florida court of appeals on a legal technicality when the judges agreed with Fox's lawyers that it is technically not against any law, rule, or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast.

Akre recalls: "Prior to our dismissal, station manager Dave Boylan, a career salesman without any roots in journalism and seemingly lacking the devotion to serve the public interest that motivates all good investigative reporting, had flaunted the company's wealth in an attempt to make us back down. "We paid $3 billion for these stations," he told us on one occasion. "We'll tell you what the news is. The news is what we say it is!"

Ah yes - Fox News; "We distort - You comply"

Additional background on the Akre and Wilson case via: FAIR.org/1998
Summary of the Akre/Wilson case below, via: 'In Motion Magazine', 1998, excerpt below:

Akre and Wilson were fired after a year-long battle over a TV news feature series they produced which highlighted the public health dangers of Monsanto's rBGH (increased antibiotic residues, increased levels of a potent human growth hormone factor called IGF-1, linked to the promotion of cancer tumors). Shortly before the original TV series was to run, an attorney from Monsanto contacted Fox TV and demanded that the script be altered. The station gave in to Monsanto's demands and told Akre and Wilson to rewrite and tone down the script. One year and 73 rewrites later Monsanto still wasn't satisfied and Akre and Wilson were fired. rBGH was approved by the FDA in February, 1994, with no labeling or special pre-market safety testing required, despite massive opposition by consumers and dairy farmers, and over the objections of scientific experts from the Consumers Union, the Cancer Prevention Coalition, and other organizations. - In Motion Magazine, "Monsanto and Fox TV Unite to Suppress Journalists' Free Speech on Hazards of Genetically Engineered Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH or rBST)"

Ah yes - Monsanto; We distort - You compote...hey wait, didn't I just read something else something like that somewhere else around here?

I'll bet that buttered CNN corn-cob Lou Dobbs will get to the bottom of all of this buggery! Heh! Shooor he will.