Opinion would be OK if it did not pose as news.
People can see the attempt at cloaking subjective opinion as objective news and do not like it.
People can see the attempt at cloaking subjective opinion as objective news and do not like it.
If we live in a post-truth era, it's not because of the internet or the shitty click-bait 'news' sources that proliferate. It's because these institutions, like the NYT and WaPo, in which we used to be able to expect an objective accounting of the facts, have devolved into the personal Pravdas of a few well-educated idiots who thought that they could steer the country in a better direction, but only managed to drive us into a ditch.
[0](see p. 5/16)https://assets.ctfassets.net/syq3snmxclc9/maEy58HDFCR7qdtFOb...
If you hire a lawyer, the lawyer generally decides what argument to make in court. The things the lawyer says do not necessarily reflect what you believe, or even reality as you see it. The lawyer is expected to say whatever is calculated to make it more likely you will win in court. While there are some rules governing what a lawyer can and cannot say, they are limited to certain egregious behavior.
The client generally only decides whether to plead guilty, not guilty, or whether to settle in a civil case, or whether to fire the lawyer.
While a client could try to pressure a lawyer to make certain arguments, the lawyer is not ethically required to listen as long as they think it's better for the client if they don't listen to the client.
If an attorney lies in a court filing, they can be sanctioned, they could be held liable for malpractice / other civil liabilities, be criminally liable, fined, lose their job, or even lose their career.
If a journalist misstates a fact that harms someone else or ruins their reputation, they add a little thingy in italics a few months later saying "oops lol guess we wuz wrong." Occasionally serial fabulists lose their reputations and careers, but generally do not suffer criminal or civil liability for their mistakes. The two professions are not terribly comparable in that respect.
The moral expectations a lawyer is under are also not the same as those of a normal person in the American system. In the American system, even if you are defending a pedophile cannibal, part of your role is to ensure the integrity of the system by providing said reprehensible person the best possible defense without lying about the facts. This ensures the good reputation of the court and, in criminal cases, builds public faith in the integrity of the prosecution. That is the ideal, even if the reality does not always live up to it.
Clients make tons of decisions in either civil or criminal cases while being advised by counsel. A lawyer cannot ethically take an action without the express approval of their client. True, clients are not generally in the driver's seat, but attorneys are limited to advising the client and only acting with the express consent of said client at every step in any kind of process.
Should journalists be held to similarly high ethical standards? That was what the professional journalistic organizations once aspired to, but they have slipped a great deal over the decades.
Was their client caught on camera committing a crime? Just spin some b.s. about that person on screen being someone else.
Did their client rape someone? Just make up some b.s. about the woman being a slut who concented. The attorney wasn't there, you can't prove they are lying when they spin b.s. so they are being "ethical".
The idea that highly paid elite attorneys are doing a public service while going to heroic efforts to try to mislead a judge and jury as to whether their super wealthy clients are guilty is the sort of b.s. these elite attorneys invent that can't be shown to be a lie.
(Of course prosecutors can behave badly as well).
In theory you are correct an attorney can be disciplined, in practice they are not expected to serve the truth.
They can even be disbarred for violating the confidentiality of what the client says to them. That's right, their job in some cases is to literally help insure nobody ever knows the truth of the client's bad deeds.
Beyond that I've read about attorneys being allowed to act against their client's wishes "for their own good", so unless you can show a case of an attorney being disciplined for not letting the client set litigation strategy I have to assume you are confused.
That only works if it could plausibly be someone else. The defence's job is to introduce reasonable doubt, not prove that their client didn't do what they are accused of. It's the court's job to establish whether there is any merit to those claims.
There are many contexts in which you may be obligated to disclose exculpatory evidence in either civil or criminal cases. This really limits how much you can actually lie because of the discipline and transparency that are imposed by the open exchange of evidence.
So, right, you bring up the painting the rape victim as a slut defense. The way that you do that effectively is not by libeling the victim or inventing things out of whole cloth. You do it by creating the possibility for reasonable doubt in the jury by describing objective facts about the behavior of the alleged victim e.g. "On the night of the alleged incident, she posted "I'm gonna get laid tonight, hell yeah!" on Facebook. She texted the defendant "I'm really horny... u down?" not long afterwards.
Do either of those facts mean that the rape did not occur? No, it could have still occurred. The defendant could still be guilty. But your job is to establish reasonable doubt in the jury, and if there are good facts for your side, you go with that. If the prosecution brings up better evidence like security footage, the defense is screwed, but you could still use the 'good facts' on your side to try to bargain down the charges.
So, attorneys misrepresent the truth not by lying but by constructing narratives that favor their side using the best evidence that supports that narrative. Attorneys don't lie if they can avoid it, but they can deceive with the truth!
Confidentiality, yes, that's how the system works.
Here's a compilation of successful disbarments over client abuses compiled by a plaintiff firm that specializes in getting other attorneys disbarred: https://attorneygrievances.com/recent-court-cases/disbarment... Almost all of these issues are related to dishonoring the wishes of clients or just acting irresponsibly.
There are other compilations from any state bar. It's also frequently a topic of news articles in attorney periodicals about attorney sanctions and disbarment, especially because the stories are often funny and colorful such as attorneys being sanctioned for encouraging a witness to be rude or attorneys sanctioned for sassing judges.
Perhaps you simply typed "malpractice cases" in a search , and thought any case would do. If you want to link to an actual case in that site you feel is relevant feel free to do so.
If you are an American attorney, (complaining about attorney would likely invite replies from attorneys) you've almost certainly read cases in law school about attorneys not obeying clients for their own good and being deemed to meet ethical standards.
To be clear, I am referring to the attorney deciding what to write in court documents and what to argue before the judge, not things like failure to appear in court. There's no point in arguing with me if you know I am correct. If you genuinely feel I am wrong I invited you to link to a particular article showing otherwise.
Your other statements are just using fancy prose to call a lie something other than a lie. The attorney isn't slut shaming, they are "creating reasonable doubt". The attorney is not misleading the jury, they are "creating an alternative picture"."
Essentially you have a dictionary of professional euphamisms for propoganda constructed to decieve the jury about what occured during the crime.
I do appreciate the idea that the high powered defense attorney serving the ultra wealthy are not liars or grifter decieving jurys as to the guily of their clients but "creators of reasonable doubt".
That's a very nice play on language and the legal standards developed over the last few hundred years.
Argument 1) This isn't libel because it's true, and
Argument 2) This isn't libel because we're allowed to lie to our readership.
Argument 1 causes you no reputational harm. Arguement 2 is an announcement to the world that you've abdicated all journalistic integrity.
Do you make argument 2 if you're confident in argument 1?
Regardless, argument 1 must not be bullet proof, because their motion to dismiss was rejected and the suit is moving forward.
This shows a misunderstanding of what the motion to dismiss adjudicates. Argument 1 cannot win on a motion to dismiss, because it's an argument over the facts.
Argument 1 is absolutely irrelevant in a motion to dismiss. Argument 2 is the only argument you can raise in a motion to dismiss.
At the motion to dismiss stage you are only arguing questions of the law. You assume the facts as alleged by the plaintiff in the complaint, and then state that given those facts there is still no legal issue that can be remedied.
If argument 2 works for purposes of a quick motion to dismiss, and argument 1 requires discovery and possibly a trial, you’ll make argument 2 first, and if that fails, mount the much more expensive side defense based on argument 1.
Argument 1) I didn't do what you're accusing me of, or
Argument 2) What you're accusing me of isn't illegal
If you can establish the second one, I don't see why you wouldn't. It seems like it would save you a bunch of effort for this and any future cases.
> The New York Times also attempted a Hail Mary claim that Project Veritas was “libel proof.” We have previously discussed such claims as very hard to establish. The court correctly and quickly dispensed with that claim by the New York Times.
Fox News also did the exact same thing on a similar lawsuit. It was used as a "gotcha" moment, but it still wasn't very meaningful.
> the NYT argued in front of a judge that what is on its front page should be understood to be opinion and not fact, even when it appears in the form of facts
That's a comment about the defamation case. The NYT was arguing the bounds of its 1A rights before the judge. When the person responded talking about the NYT arguing it's 1A rights, that's what they were talking about.
Then you asked what your comment had anything do to with 1A rights, and I pointed out that a comment about the defamation case is inherently about 1A rights.
So...it doesn't really matter that your commend had nothing to do with Project Veritas because the rest of the comment chain in response also has nothing to do with it.
You can say your comment wasn't about that topic if you want, but it's just doesn't seem accurate to me. I'm not "gishgalloping", I'm just explaining to you why people are reacting as if you commented on the defamation case.
Anyway, I think we're way out in the weeds and this discussion probably isn't productive so I'll drop it. I'm sorry if I didn't understand what you were trying to say.
The NYT did in fact argue that they have a license to lie, and won: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan
However, the ruling explicitly states that if the publication knew that the information was false or disregarded whether it was true, then a defendant would be liable for damages.
That seems completely reasonable and in no way suggests that anyone has a license to lie.
Sullivan sent such a [retraction] request. The Times did not publish a retraction in response to the demand.
Your post makes it seem like the NYT knowingly published false information about someone and refused to retract it, as if the NYT believed that they had the right to publish lies about someone.
Your source, however, paints a very different and much more nuanced picture. The NYT published an advertisement paid for by an independent organization, the ad contained false information, the NYT did retract the ad, the police commissioner, Sullivan, who is unnamed in the ad but potentially implicated by it sued the NYT for defamation, a court case was fought over whether the ad actually implicated him or not, the Alabama courts decided that the ad did implicate Sullivan and awarded Sullivan damages, the NYT appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court and they overturned the Alabama's Supreme Court decision on the basis that Sullivan being implicated by the ad is not sufficient to award damages for defamation.
At no point did the NYT try to justify lying or claim that they have a license to lie. What the NYT's argued was that Sullivan had no grounds to sue because he was not implicated by the ad.
My cited source is a legal decision, written by a judge.
I've followed Project Veritas and yes they go undercover for right-wing causes, but I haven't seen evidence of them being deliberately untruthful in their reporting.
The real case here is that imho we should all start to (1) withdraw from outrage, (2) expand our bubble to cover all sides.
I've done the latter, it helped with the former, although I'm not there yet.
I'm guessing you'll claim that Project Veritas was truthfully reporting what Hopkins told them, and it's not their fault that he changed his story once he talked to law enforcement. Even though he also told the investigators that his initial affadavit was written by Project Veritas.
[1]: https://entertainment.time.com/2011/03/13/the-twisty-bent-tr...
Financial news and if US business news coverage isn't super important to be granular for you, then go for the gold standard which is the Financial Times. The Economist approach doesn't appeal much to me, since most of the time they are like a free-market hammer to which everything looks like a nail. Tech news, Stratechery.
Do you have some examples? I don't remember reading that in the WSJ.
The video in this article, even though I appreciate the criticism of Cuomo.
Also right now, in the front page of WSJ, there is an article criticizing the "woke orthodoxy". I'm no fan of wokeness, but I would have preferred some balanced criticism of the right too from a professional publication. Or just stick to professional reporting like FT.
The NYT is highly disrespected around the world, and considered a mouthpiece for the US government (or key factions within it).
edit: replaced "=>" with "becomes"
Feels like major news corporations need to balance between maintaining credibility (at least ones that care about it) and publishing something that might (for lack of better term) trigger reaction like "wtf my favorite Blah-news is becoming more and more leftist-marxist/racist-fascist. Fk them, I switching to unicorn-patriot-news-or-something".
Marked-driven confirmation bias. I wish I had a good idea how to fix it but I don't.
I also read some Singaporean print media. Various ministries in the single party gov't regularly pays local media to write "paid content". Without fail, the notice about paid content is not obvious or hard to find. What a shame.
But claiming some opinions are verboten or others must be accepted as fact rapidly destroys any historical reputation for a media organization.
It’s gotten so bad that a the NYT apologized for letting a sitting US Senator (Tom Cotton)[1] publish an op-ed that diverged with the views of its subscribers.
I might think that Senator Warren is an idiot, but I have no issue with her expressing her stupidity.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/business/new-york-times-o...
I think The Times knows that their revenue comes from people "picking a side", not from people looking for unbiased news. That's because it's easier to cultivate a fanbase than it is to hope that there is interesting news. Most days are boring -- you only get a blockbuster exclusive story once a decade.
Out in the ad-supported world of supposedly free content, yes, fewer opinions would be a boon.
Opinion-infested reports where the writer is casting aspersions, making judgements, serving vanguard for some cause or presenting the writer's own opinion as part of the narrative are worthless to me. It's fine to have opinions as long as 1. that is what you are intending to sell and 2. you acknowledge this and are upfront about it.
When writing in a style that I'd closely associate with how I'd like journalism written, I often find myself taking the beginning few sentences/paragraph to explain the facts of the situation as I understand it and the rest on what I think about it or why I think it occurred, etc.
I write this way because I am very open to corrections on the facts and my opinions may change wildly if those facts are corrected or updated so stated the basis for my thoughts up front helps provide context. My opinions and explanations are a lot less malleable if the facts don't change. I'm open to expanding and discussing my opinions but they usually evolve rather than fully change.
It's hard for me to really speculate on the driving force or the motive behind what we see in journalism today (or whether it's new) but it's very clear to me that the intent of the articles written don't seem to be clarity between fact and opinion.
Last seen just these days in US media about guns/gun crime/shootings etc. etc. There are so many statistics which all define mass shootings however they want and its super easy to find the "facts" you need for whatever point you wanna bring across.
To some extent, this devalues the brand of all news. I'm sure that the Trump supporters who think The New York Times is fake news also don't read The Wall Street Journal. Even though the Journal has pretty conservative slate opinion columnists (and editorial board), people won't even consider it because they think all mainstream media is fake. (It never tells them what they want to hear; the real world without spin is VERY BORING.)