News, Media And Truth

Can I tell you a bed time story? The news at ten does it all the time. Once upon a time, there were two investigatory journalists. (What? I’m not an ambiturner – it’s a common problem.)

In the magical kingdom of ‘Florida’, they were hired by Fox News to get the dirt on anyone they could, and help warn consumers – helpless consumers, like you and me.

They did a story on bovine growth hormones in milk production. Fox told them to change their content. That means, lie… just a little lie.

83 revisions to the script? That’s a BIG lie.

They wouldn’t change it. They were fired. They sued for backwages – and they won! Then it was appealed – then they lost.

How does THAT happen?

Fox News argued in court that they were not required by law to tell the truth. And they’re not. And neither is any other private News organisation… [oohh, ouch!]

Think of your relationship with your anchor man…as a verbal agreement. He promises to provide you with honest, objective reports, and you believe him. But there’s no real contract. There’s no real obligation to do that. And if he wants to keep his job, he’s just going to keep reading what comes on the teleprompter.

Yeah, like any anchor man does research to check the validity of a story anyway.

The parent company of Fox News is NewsCorp. On their corporate web site, they have the following written under the “corporate governance standards of business conducts” section:

“Integrity, honesty, forthrightness and fairness are of primary importance in all business relationships involving the Company.”

I wonder if that includes their business relationships with ME. Oh, wait, just keep reading.

“These Standards are not intended to be all encompassing. Situations may arise that are not expressly covered or where the proper course of action is unclear.”

Ain’t that the truth, hey guys? Like getting caught telling your employees to lie. ‘It was just so unclear. I mean, a definite grey area. We had to omit… everything… that reflected poorly on our corporate partners…in order to fairly tell the story.’

I think all News casts should take Hollywood’s lead and put a disclaimer on the screen that says, “Based on a true story” or “Inspired by a true story” so that way they can at least tell the truth about almost telling the truth. And the whole dishonesty and media thing holds true for more than just TV. Check out our link to doctored photos from Reuters. And you thought PhotoShop was only for fashion magazines?

But who can I trust to tell the truth about what’s going on in the world? CNN? CNN – the Creative News Network? Accuracy and honesty? Not their forte.

I’ll tell you who to trust…

NOBODY… not even us.

There’s so many good links below on our web site – come check it out. You’ve got to see this.

And they all lived happily, and dishonestly, after. The End

Transcribed by: Ian

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