On Tuesday, April 29, 2003, at 08:29 AM, David Howe wrote:
I'm not sure how I feel about this. Problems would arise if there *were* a law against news media presenting false information. The question becomes 'What is truth?', and 'Who decides". Laws of this type are used in many tyrannies (recently, Zimbabwe) to persecute reporters on the grounds that they were 'libeling the government'. I think there is a distinction between truth as an absolute, the twisted wording required to avoid libel in the uk, and deliberately lieing to people who believe you are a source of
at Tuesday, April 29, 2003 3:16 PM, Trei, Peter <ptrei@rsasecurity.com> was seen to say: truth about the world they can't see. The UK has some pretty strong rules in this area - for instance, a newsreader can't be seen to promote (advertise) a product, as a viewer could confuse marketing (which is always a bit suspect) with "news" (which is supposed to be unbiassed and as accurate as the broadcaster can make it) and in libel/slander cases, the burden of proof is on the defendant - not fun at all.
'Truth in media' is a sword that cuts both ways. Indeed - but (at least in a free press) there is supposed to be a distinction between "marketing" "news" and "propaganda". Of course, freedom of the presses has only ever been available to those who own presses....
This interpretation is certainly not supported by libertarian principles. I outlined the reasons in my previoius, longer, post. I agree that things are not like this in the U.K., but they "should" be. If the state has the authority to classify words as "marketing" or "new" or "propaganda," all is basically lost. And "freedom of the press" is indeed limited to those with presses, except presses have long been a nonbarrier to speech, given the incredible low cost of mimeograph machines, offset printing, laser printing, and so on. And now we have the Net.
--Tim May "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship." --Alexander Fraser Tyler