Fake News for Big Brother

[Tim May]

On Tuesday, April 29, 2003, at 07:16  AM, Trei, Peter 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'.
>
> 'Truth in media' is a sword that cuts both ways.


I don't see any basis for supporting a "law against lying."

Unless a contract is involved, lying is just another form of speech.

Should a church which claims that praying to the baby Jesus will save 
one from going to Hell be prosecuted for lying?

Should a newspaper be prosecuted for publishing a claim that the 
Sumerian prediction that Nibiru, aka Planet X, will stop the earth from 
rotating on May 15, 2003?

Should someone be prosecuted for saying the Holocaust never happened, 
or was exaggerated greatly by the Jewish lobby?

The answer to all libertarians, and the answer embodied in the First 
Amendment to the United States Constitution, is "No."

Of course, the idea of reputation matters. And--Declan can correct me 
or clarify things--newspapers and perhaps even reporters have 
professional organizations and other "standards and practices" type of 
seals of approval. Something like "This newspaper is a member of the 
National Assocation for the Advancement of Uncolored Journalism," or 
somesuch.

Probably the Weekly World News ("Baby Eats Own Hand, Aliens Suspected") 
would not be a member in good standing of the NAAUJ.

And the newspaper which published the deliberately false arson story 
should at the least face suspension.

Were someone to kill the reporter who wrote the false story, I would 
only chuckle.

This doesn't mean government should be involved in deciding the answer 
to Pilate's famous question, "What is truth?"

--Tim May
"The State is the great fiction by which everyone seeks to live at the 
expense of everyone else." --Frederic Bastiat