IF NOT FOR DOUBLE STANDARDS, THEY’D HAVE NO STANDARDS AT ALL: Mainstream media, in the march to demonize Tucker Carlson, howled mercilessly when in 2020 Fox filed court papers in a libel suit saying he was not presenting “factual news, but commentary.”
“You Literally Can’t Believe The Facts Tucker Carlson Tells You. So Say Fox’s Lawyers” NPR crowed. Business Insider took the same howling path, headlining their story “Fox News won a court case by ‘persuasively’ arguing that no ‘reasonable viewer’ takes Tucker Carlson seriously.” (Note: that publication’s founder is Henry Blodgett. You know, the guy who pleaded guilty to securities fraud. A paragon of virtue and truth, for sure).
No, it’s never a good look for a media defendant to say “I was joking” ot “it’s opinion not fact,” but lawyers are obligated to provide the most zealous defense they can to their clients.
So how is it that those same people forget that a year before the Tucker case, Rachel Maddow, who said on-air that “One America Network literally is paid Russian propaganda.”
I don’t know about you, but the word “literally” means, well, literally.
OAN sued and you’ll never guess what her lawyers argued…wait for it… “No reasonable viewer could conclude that Maddow implied an assertion of objective fact.”
Today we have a replay of the same double standard. CNN’s Jake (rhymes with “fake”) Tapper is, along with CNN, being sued for defamation in Florida to the tune of $1 billion after he and CNN aired a wholly shoddy piece, accusing Zachary Young and his security consulting company, Nemex Enterprises Inc., of illegally profiting when helping people flee Afghanistan during the Biden-Harris administration’s f’ed up military withdrawal from the country in 2021.
The court said “CNN argues it did not intend to harm; its language was either opinion or ambiguous.”
That doesn’t sound much like “The Most Trusted Name in News.”
The facts of that case are stunning, some of which are contained here. CNN’s internal communications are an atomic bomb of Actual Malice.
If I were Young, I wouldn’t settle either.
My question is simple: Don’t any of these people own a mirror?