thunky 18 hours ago

It's true though. All cable news is "entertainment news", not "news".

Nobody should have been getting their "news" from Tucker Carlson, Don Lemon, or Rachel Maddow.

IMO they shouldn't be allowed to call themselves news without putting entertainment in front.

  • ash_091 9 hours ago

    Absolutely- even as a lifelong leftie, I find the rhetoric on CNBC just as sickening as that on Fox.

    I've (somewhat sardonically) wondered if they're both false flag operations. Imagine CNBC started with the idea "we'll parody the left to make them seem radical and unreasonable" but accidentally developed a huge following who didn't get the joke.

  • dingnuts 16 hours ago

    Thank you for pointing this out. Carlson and Maddow made nearly identical arguments in court and if both are not mentioned in the same breath, the speakers bias is instantly displayed to anyone who is educated on this topic.

    > IMO they shouldn't be allowed to call themselves news without putting entertainment in front.

    Agreed but the average person wouldn't understand that Entertainment News was different than News. The problem goes deeper. I despair.

    • smallmancontrov 15 hours ago

      Carlson's texts were wild, they proved that he knew he was spreading lies and did it anyway for views. That's why Fox settled with Dominion for $787 million dollars.

      Meanwhile, OAN sued Maddow for calling them Russian propaganda and her lawyers responded by flexing, doubling down with receipts under oath. Signing up for consequences if they were wrong, and receiving none because they were correct.

      So no, these are not the same, and anyone who argues that they are immediately reveals themselves to be partisan hacks.

      • thunky 14 hours ago

        From https://www.courthousenews.com/ninth-circuit-backs-dismissal...

        [Judge Smith] found OAN and its parent company were unlikely to prevail on the defamation claim because the challenged speech was not a statement of fact and the context of Maddow’s show made it likely her audience would expect her to make political opinions.

        Putting the details of the court case aside, the judge is clearly saying that he does not believe that Maddow's show was "news" and it shouldn't be treated as such. That's what GP was pointing out: the defense of being "not news", which both shows have in common.

        • smallmancontrov 9 hours ago

          Nope. You paid very selective attention to that article:

          > the context provided by Maddow’s commentary before and after she made the statement disclosed all relevant facts and contained colorful language.

          If you listen to the clip in question, you'll observe that Maddow explains the facts, makes an exclamation, and then explains the facts. The complaint here only works if you clip chimp the exclamation. Contrast this with the complaint against Carlson, where he engages in what was by his own admission sustained deception.

      • jonhohle 14 hours ago

        You may be interested in Young v. CNN going on right now. It probably won’t be a 9 figure judgment, but could be 8.

      • ipaddr 14 hours ago

        They are not the same because one had text indicating they were aware? While the other claimed to be braindead and no texts to prove otherwise?

        They are literally the same with one case having a text message.

        They are both not news and if you think that one and not the other is news than you might be the partisan you are trying to label others as.

    • 1659447091 13 hours ago

      > the average person wouldn't understand that Entertainment News was different than News

      I think the 'average' person thinks of 'Entertainment News' as celebrity gossip, e.g., E! News[0] etc. Telling them the entertainment news/opinion/commentary they watch is not actually 'News' but is entertainment "news" doesn't compute

      [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E!_News

      • Terretta 5 hours ago

        News Entertainment?

        Like WWE is Sports Entertainment.

_n_b_ 17 hours ago

What Fox News argued was a bit more nuanced than that all of Fox News isn't news. Rather, "Fox successfully argued that one particular segment on Tucker Carlson’s show could only be reasonably interpreted as making political arguments, not making factual assertions, and therefore couldn’t be defamation."[1]

That feels like a fairly reasonable assertion for anybody watching Tucker Carlson.

[1] https://popehat.substack.com/p/fox-news-v-fox-entertainment-...

  • skrebbel 17 hours ago

    I know nothing about the case but isn't that a little like saying "look, we weren't lying, cause we never said we were saying the truth"?

    • _n_b_ 16 hours ago

      Well, context matters in looking at defamation claims.

      Let's say you were involved in a freak hunting accident and shot somebody, but you were never charged with any crimes.

      If the Fox News "hard news" program (if such a thing exists) said "skrebbel is a murderer" that is more likely to be understood to be a statement of fact, asserting something in a legalistic sense. [IANAL, but I think even this is unlikely to be defamation, although there is a somewhat similar case where ABC settled with Donald Trump over saying he was "liable for rape"]

      If somebody on Tucker Carlson Tonight said "You can't trust anything that skrebbel guy says, he's a murderer!" that is more likely to be understood as an opinion based on disclosed facts, not a fact. That person isn't asserting that you committed or were convicted of a specific crime of murder, but rather that you killed somebody and it might be your fault. On a show were people are arguing and exchanging opinionated views, viewers should understand that these things are opinions. And therefore that's not defamation, because it's an opinion.

      • skrebbel 16 hours ago

        > You can't trust anything that skrebbel guy says, he's a murderer!

        I am deeply offended and contemplating to sue you for defamation.

  • vixen99 13 hours ago

    Political argument, as such, is worthwhile insofar as it can cause me to reexamine my own preconceptions. Facts I can pick up almost anytime.

TeMPOraL 13 hours ago

Isn't it also how, many years ago, Top Gear got away with a hit job on Tesla by claiming they're just an entertainment show, so they're not obligated to do honest or truthful reviews?