The press

A general question, with no specific incidents at the moment, but their is plenty of historical evidence it has happened.

"When the press, of any political persuasion DELIBERATELY publish a story they KNOW is fake, untrue or lies, what sanctions should they face?"

Smack on the Wrist and a hundred lines ?

I'm not a real fan of suppression of speech, Andy.  I think the answer to a lie, is for someone else to tell the truth.  Then let the audience determine the scope and severity of the misdeed...if any.

Disagreements in academia take place all the time, and they are handled in a most gentlemanly fashion.  Politics should be handled in the same way.

Andy wrote:A general question, with no specific incidents at the moment, but their is plenty of historical evidence it has happened.

"When the press, of any political persuasion DELIBERATELY publish a story they KNOW is fake, untrue or lies, what sanctions should they face?"

The should be ridiculed by the rest of the press.

The Sun, Express Mail, Mirror and Fox have been doing it for decades.
They should go the same way as the News of the World

Andy wrote:The Sun, Express Mail, Mirror and Fox have been doing it for decades.
They should go the same way as the News of the World

You could try not reading or watching them.

Andy wrote:A general question, with no specific incidents at the moment, but their is plenty of historical evidence it has happened.

"When the press, of any political persuasion DELIBERATELY publish a story they KNOW is fake, untrue or lies, what sanctions should they face?"

Give us some examples of where you KNOW this has happened. I don't mean where you have read it in some other publication, or seen it discussed in social media (the repository for more fake news, untruths and downright lies than in any past or present form of published communication), or where it is simply "untrue" because you, yourself, don't believe it to be true

And no, as a former journalist, the question is not a cop out on my part.

For instance, are you talking about published news items or are you talking about newspaper (or TV or radio,for that matter) comment?  Because if so, the two are vastly different, as defined in the words of the great newspaperman and campaigner C P Scott, Editor of the then Manchester Guardian: "Comment is free, but facts are sacred."

Since the majority of news stories concern either personalities or organisations of some form or another, a published fake or untrue statement can face "sanction" in the civil courts in the form of an action for libel...the holding up of the  complainant to hatred, ridicule or contempt in the eyes of a right thinking person.

My legal knowledge is now a little rusty (Quill may well put me right if I am wrong) but if the offending false statement was made knowingly  and with malice, then an action might well be pursued through the criminal courts.

And rightly so.

However, if you are simply griping about something offensive to you that has appeared in the press or broadcast media under the name of a named commentator such as Owen Jones, Richard Richard Littlejohn or Quentin Letts, then they are simply exercising their right of free speech and doing their job...which is to express their own opinion on matters importance without fear or favour...a right enjoyed by every member of this and every other forum on the internet.

And, if they are then shown to have lied, libeling or defaming someone for instance, then they (and potentially the organisation employing them) face similar legal sanctions.

Your question is obviously prompted by one or more examples, so why not share them with us so that we might at least deal with specifics?

Such as...on at least two previous occasions you have referred to me as "just a hack on a weekly rag", something to which I might have taken great exception because it is far, far removed from the truth, except that I see nothing wrong in working for small local newspapers because they are just as responsible as the nationals for keeping their readers informed about what is happening in the community, particularly where politicians are concerned.

A local weekly paper might have been where I started, but it wasn't where I finished - and your jibe might well be regarded a deliberate and malicious lie!

Just think, but for the convenience of internet anonymity I could have seen you in the High Court facing substantial damages for defamation.....

Let me answer that with minimal words .
The Sun
Kelvin McKenzie
Hillsborough lies.

Hacking by The News of the World and Piers Morgan in the Mirror.

Andy wrote: Let me answer that with minimal words .
The Sun
Kelvin McKenzie
Hillsborough lies.

Hacking by The News of the World and Piers Morgan in the Mirror.

You realise, of course, that at the time of Hillsborough - a tragic event in which I have very close family connections - The Sun published those allegations based on the "first hand accounts" of anonymous very senior police officers in the local force and even - disgracefully - by a local Tory MP who was not even at the match.

The Sun's appalling failure was not that they actually published material but that they failed miserably to check that it was correct and to apply the first law of editorship - "Check, check and check again. And then, if in doubt, leave out."

The newspaper paid the price. They are still reviled in Liverpool and tutors in journalism today refer to the incident as a classic example of sloppy and criminally irresponsible journalism (I certainly did so when I was a visiting tutor in journalism at two universities years later).

McKenzie also, to his belated credit, published an eye-wateringly humiliating apology.

News of the World hacking: Yes, by God, and they paid the price... deservedly so. The paper is now extinct.

You called for "sanctions" - that is precisely what happened.

What more do you want? The gallows? The guillotine?

Fred Moletrousers wrote:

Andy wrote: Let me answer that with minimal words .
The Sun
Kelvin McKenzie
Hillsborough lies.

Hacking by The News of the World and Piers Morgan in the Mirror.

You realise, of course, that at the time of Hillsborough - a tragic event in which I have very close family connections -  The Sun published those allegations  based on the "first hand accounts" of anonymous very senior police officers in the local force and even - disgracefully - by a local Tory MP who was not even at the match.

The Sun's appalling failure was not that they actually published material but that they failed miserably to check that it was correct and to apply the first law of editorship - "Check, check and check again. And then, if in doubt, leave out."

The newspaper paid the price. They are still reviled in Liverpool and tutors in journalism today refer to the incident as a classic example of sloppy and criminally irresponsible journalism (I certainly did so when I was a visiting tutor in journalism at two universities years later).

McKenzie also, to his belated credit, published an eye-wateringly humiliating apology.

News of the World hacking: Yes, by God, and they paid the price... deservedly so. The paper is now extinct.

You called for "sanctions" - that is precisely what happened.

What more do you want? The gallows? The guillotine?

Fred, I'm not as familiar with the UK events as I am with those over here, but in just reading your report, and Andy's, I see nothing but agreement of the two of you.

I've always noted your high integrity and honestly--something that I find appealing, tho we are on opposite sides so often--but it is something totally unlike Tory behavior. Your own description of the Hillsborough event, police and the Tory MP, admits that. Why, with so much rectitude personally, do you remain a Tory?

He remains Tory because the alternative is unthinkable !

Original Quill wrote:

Fred Moletrousers wrote:

You realise, of course, that at the time of Hillsborough - a tragic event in which I have very close family connections -  The Sun published those allegations  based on the "first hand accounts" of anonymous very senior police officers in the local force and even - disgracefully - by a local Tory MP who was not even at the match.

The Sun's appalling failure was not that they actually published material but that they failed miserably to check that it was correct and to apply the first law of editorship - "Check, check and check again. And then, if in doubt, leave out."

The newspaper paid the price. They are still reviled in Liverpool and tutors in journalism today refer to the incident as a classic example of sloppy and criminally irresponsible journalism (I certainly did so when I was a visiting tutor in journalism at two universities years later).

McKenzie also, to his belated credit, published an eye-wateringly humiliating apology.

News of the World hacking: Yes, by God, and they paid the price... deservedly so. The paper is now extinct.

You called for "sanctions" - that is precisely what happened.

What more do you want? The gallows? The guillotine?

Fred, I'm not as familiar with the UK events as I am with those over here, but in just reading your report, and Andy's, I see nothing but agreement of the two of you.

I've always noted your high integrity and honestly--something that I find appealing, tho we are on opposite sides so often--but it is something totally unlike Tory behavior.  Your own description of the Hillsborough event, police and the Tory MP, admits that.  Why, with so much rectitude personally, do you remain a Tory?

Hi Quill. Actually I was simply responding, as a former fairly senior journalist, to Andy's OP which posed the question: ""When the press, of any political persuasion DELIBERATELY publish a story they KNOW is fake, untrue or lies, what sanctions should they face?"

He then, at my request, gave me two specific incidents and I was able to put him straight, hopefully, on the facts. One was that the editor of The Sun newspaper did not deliberately lie about the aftermath of the Hillsborough football disaster (a huge and controversial tragedy in which almost 100 fans were crushed to death) as Andy believes, although he and his staff showed appalling professional incompetence and unbelievable irresponsibility in not checking the accuracy of false facts and lurid quotes given anonymously by very senior police officers, and for which the paper humbly apologised.

Andy rightly mentioned two newspapers as being guilty of publishing criminally hacked material, but far from not being punished for it as he implies, several journalists were charged and one was jailed for, as I recall, about 18 months, and one of the papers - one of the biggest titles in the world - was shut down by its proprietor.

I'm proud of my profession as I am sure you are of yours, but there are crooked journalists as well as crooked lawyers and I am no more going to defend them than you would.

So far as my politics are concerned, I'm boringly middle of the road with a slight leaning to the Right, and pretty old fashioned in that I tend to vote for the constituency candidate who is most likely to represent my neck if the woods best and who I think would make the best parliamentarian.

That's why I have, in the past, voted for all three major parties, and once for the Monster Raving Loony Party as my cynical reaction to the Tories, Labour and Lib Dems having achieved the distinction of coming up, for the same election, with the most spectacular trio of dyed-in-the-wool Dickheads imaginable!

Currently, I'm "Tory" in that I'm happy with my sitting MP and will probably vote for her - but would never, in a million years, vote for the ghastly Opposition party that we currently have in this country. If the Leader of the Labour Party was someone like Dan Jarvis or the late and much lamented John Smith, then who knows........

Well Fred, that better explains it.  I, too, have switched parties, tho in my case it was a more of a singular event.  I was born into a quite well-off family, and to be anything but a Republican was shear heresy, as the rich favor the party of special interests.

But, hidden back there my mother was the daughter of a poor South Dakota sharecropper, with some fundamental humanist values.  She married well, but furtively, and almost conspiratorially, she passed the humanism on to me.

It broke out when I learned that my country no longer stood for virtue, but championed starting wars under false pretenses, and then countenanced such things as kidnapping and rendition, torture, rape, murder and concentration camps.

Then I finally fathomed that virtue had retreated to the left, as the right embraced the dark side of the force.  Money and special interests, not humanity, was what consumed my own background.

Today, I'm not wholly a Democrat, but I totally reject the dishonesty and scheming of conservatism.  I guess I'd just rather be right than rich.

You hate your Country Quill, why not fuck off to North Korea ?

nicko wrote:You hate your Country Quill, why not fuck off to North Korea ?

You mean another land of:

kidnapping and rendition, torture, rape, murder and concentration camps.

He said he doesn't like that sort of thing, didn't he?

If he went there, he'd see that America a'int too bad !

Andy wrote:The Sun, Express Mail, Mirror and Fox have been doing it for decades.
They should go the same way as the News of the World

You think it's just RW papers that lie?

eddie wrote:

Andy wrote:The Sun, Express Mail, Mirror and Fox have been doing it for decades.
They should go the same way as the News of the World

You think it's just RW papers that lie?  

Mirror, rw?.?????

nicko wrote:If he went there, he'd see that America a'int too bad !

Yeah, but is that the standard Americans want to meet? Seems a bit low.

I think the most rich and powerful country in the world should want a bit more for itself than, "At least we ain't North Korea!"

Most of the unreliable, sensationalist left-wing news companies are online, from what I've seen. You particularly have to be careful with the Huffington Post -- I never would rely on their reporting as my only source on a news story.

nicko wrote:You hate your Country Quill, why not fuck off to North Korea ?

Nicko, running accomplishes nothing. You, a soldier...would you run just because the battle was hot? Shame on you for even thinking it.

I'd rather stay here and fight to correct things.

nicko wrote:If he went there, he'd see that America a'int too bad !

Isn't that a quaint form of whataboutism? America a'int too bad...whatabout North Korea?

The answer to that is: go fix both systems and stop wasting time comparing them!

Original Quill wrote:

nicko wrote:If he went there, he'd see that America a'int too bad !

Isn't that a quaint form of whataboutism?  America a'int too bad...whatabout North Korea?

The answer to that is: go fix both systems and stop wasting time comparing them!

I find that I agree with you.