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Comment by 93po | Hacker News Reader

All corporate media has done this. For example, it's made left leaning people think that only Fox News is the issue when it's all corporate media

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All corporate media have the same problems (ie: getting peoples' attention, money, advertising, etc. -- to stay alive). All corporate media have their own internal politics (like all businesses), a historical track record, a reputation, and individuals that have their own biases. However, not all corporate media blatantly lie to their users (that is... tell people incorrect information to get their point across). Fox News blatantly lies to their viewers -- that is, the intent is to give them false information. It IS different from the norm.

this is exactly my point. right wing politics in the US is absolutely uniquely harmful, they are objectively worse than left wing parties. however to think that the WSJ, CNN, WaPo, etc don't routinely lie/distort/twist/misrepresent ALL THE TIME about EVERYTHING is just completely completely wrong. these are publications owned and controlled by billionaires and are absolutely mouthpieces of what those billionaires what to distribute. and its not always "mr evil overlord yelling at the editor to run a fake narrative and lie about XYZ". it's "selfish narcissist billionaire will only hire an editor that already believes all this and does it without being asked to".

Point being, only Fox has lost eight-figure lawsuits for broadcasting lies and calling it "News."

literally my first google search and result (for "cnn lawsuit") showed a multimillion dollar successful lawsuit against CNN for defamation (which requires that it be a lie): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN_controversies

adding trump to the search instead of CNN shows ABC and Steph. being ordered to pay Trump $15 million for defamation (which again, requires lying about a person or facts): https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/14/trump-abc-stephanop...

there are endless examples of this

Settlements aren’t judgements, just to be super clear. They can also just be bribes, or a realization that legal costs outweigh the truth. Trump is infamous for suing and badgering opponents into settlements to avoid losing even more money in trials even fintehy think they can win.

there is zero way ABC or George would have accepted losing against trump/settling and the absolutely terrible optics of that if they had literally any other choice.

There is definitely lots of ways ABC or George would have seen nominal settlements more cost effective than a long winding trial. Trump has a long history of getting people who were clearly in the right to pay him.

Those settlements are legal bribes. The Dominion judgement against Fox was not.

you're saying that george steph. deliberately lied so that trump could sue him and he would be "forced" to pay trump $15 million? so he could bribe trump with $15 million but not be seen as actually willingly giving trump this money?

Gee, I don't know. Let's take a look here. Trump was found liable for sexual assault in a court of law. Stephanopoulos said he was found liable for rape. In a trial, I'd think ABC would have at least as good a shot at winning as Elon Musk did when he groundlessly accused the Thai cave diver of being a pedophile. And the cave diver wasn't even a prominent public figure. In the US, public figures like Trump almost never prevail in these suits, as any actual attorney will tell you.

Meanwhile, Fox News was found to have acted with malice in airing allegations with “reckless disregard” for the truth, allegations that it knew to be false. Dominion presented volumes of internal emails and text messages in which Fox execs and talking heads acknowledged that the accusations against the company and its machines were untrue, even while the lies were actively being broadcast.

Yup, I guess you're right, those totally sound comparable to me. They both represent abject sycophancy of our supposedly-free press, all in the service of a thug with a brainwashed personality cult behind him. BSAB, amirite.

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