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Comment by ilovecurl | Hacker News Reader

During Dominion's case against Fox News around this same issue Fox News' own lawyers stated that they were not stating actual facts about the topics under discussion and instead were engaged in exaggeration and non-literal commentary. It's not news, it's infotainment.

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Lawyers would tell you that water isn't wet it's just slick if it'd help them win their case.

I don't see any fix for the news cycle besides slowing it down. Even if enough happens to fill 24h in a day there isn't enough time to actually analyze it at all.

I don't think you understand. It's not news, but entertainment. Unbiased news is: AP, Reuters, CSPAN.

> Lawyers would tell you that water isn't wet

Sure, but do you really think the Fox News anchors honestly believed what they were saying?

I’d venture a guess: no. They said what they said because that’s what they had to do to get their paycheck at the end of the day.

Yes, lawyers will say whatever to win a case. But I highly doubt those news anchors really thought the election was stolen. It’s all for ratings. Let’s be honest.

To willingly lie about something you need to be able to differentiate truth from fiction. Defamation hinges on either this willing lie ("malice") or on negligence (and the expected due diligence for a self-professed news organization is high). There is a little performative middle ground here, but WHATEVER is argued in court does not moot the things argued at every commercial break about trusting their news institution to report the facts. Fox news is not, and never has been, intended as satire.

> Fox news is not, and never has been, intended as satire

Their homepage right now is featuring a pull up and push up contest between Hegseth and RFK jr.

It hardly appears as though they’re trying to be a legitimate news network. (Same goes for CNN - both are incredibly and undeniably outrageous in their reporting)

But I agree, their audiences take their reporting seriously, even if they themselves are just saying what they say for the ratings.

A light comedy piece or a plucky human interest story do not erase the statements of fact made or the repeated insistence on being taken seriously which pervade the rest of this institution. It isn't even reliant on their audience taking them seriously, it's reliant on the intended tone and how a reasonable person would perceive that intent.

You can argue that Fox News is intended to be basically the Colbert Report satirizing a certain mindset, but it's an obviously bad-faith argument. The Colbert Report was literally created to satirize the seriousness and mendacity of Fox News and its attempts to persuade people into a set of not just interpretations of the world, but factual beliefs about that world.

There is a line, and Fox runs way over the line into defamatory content multiple times an hour.

I can't immunize myself from currency counterfeiting charges by claiming that I never thought the copies were real, that it was all just in fun, that I was pranking the businesses I spent them at, and that my Youtube channel includes other fun bits of me deceiving people and telling jokes. The one does not exculpate the other.

It's the narcissist's "Ha ha ha only joking" defence.

Jeanine Pirro likes to talk about Treason for example.

When Trump is accused of it, her background as a lawyer kicks in and she can correctly articulate the reasons why Trump has not committed Treason.

However, in any other case she will accuse all manner of folks of committing treason and request they face harsh consequences.

Fox News is lies and rage bait.

National television news will always be what it is. The business model is ad sales, from that all else inevitably follows. A news corporation is a corporation first and foremost. That said, there wasn’t anything anomalous about the 2020 election that can’t be claimed of other elections so there’s that.

I would describe the difference as being between broadcast and 24 hour cable news. The latter will always be what it is, the former (although not quite what it used to be) is much less rage baity.

The news has always been, "if it bleeds, it leads" though.

Do actors believe their lines? This makes no sense.

This is a general defense to try and moot the existence of defamation law, and a judge who isn't on the right-wing payroll is likely to take offense.

Fox settled with Dominion for $800M.

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