Fox News: First Amendment Protects Lies and Untruths

Faced with a lawsuit alleging consumer fraud, Fox News is defending the lies and falsities it disseminated as protected free speech, exhibiting no concern for the lives it may have jeopardized both among its viewers and members of the larger public that they may infect with Covid-19.  In its court filing, Fox News basically conceded that it had disseminated falsehoods but said that the false nature of its "news" and lies of its anchors did not matter under the First Amendment's protection of free speech whether that speech is false or not. Indeed, the lack of any social conscience is stunning.  A piece in Salon looks at Fox News' defense of its false propaganda.  Here are highlights:

Fox News has moved to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a Washington state group accusing the network of "deceptive" coronavirus coverage by arguing that the First Amendment protects "false" and "outrageous" speech.

The network's lawyers said in a motion seeking to dismiss the lawsuit that the "First Amendment does not permit censoring this type of speech based on the theory that it is 'false' or 'outrageous.' Nor does the law of the State of Washington."

The Washington League for Increased Transparency and Ethics (WASHLITE) filed a lawsuit in King County earlier this month seeking a court order barring the network from "interfering with reasonable and necessary measures to contain the virus by publishing further false and deceptive content."

The suit accused the network of violating the state's Consumer Protection Act by "falsely and deceptively disseminating 'news' via cable news contracts that the coronavirus was a 'hoax' and that it was otherwise not a danger to public health and safety."

The suit specifically cited Fox News host Sean Hannity and former Fox Business host Trish Regan for having "acted in bad faith to willfully and maliciously disseminate false information denying and minimizing the danger posed by the spread of the novel coronavirus."

Hannity downplayed the threat of the coronavirus and argued it was less dangerous than the flu. Regan was fired shortly after accusing Democrats of pushing a "coronavirus impeachment scam." "It's Constitutional Law 101: the First Amendment protects our right to speak openly and freely on matters of public concern," Fox News Media general counsel Lily Fu Claffee said in a statement. "If WASHLITE doesn't like what we said, it can criticize us, but it can't silence us with a lawsuit." The network's lawyers argued that Hannity and Regan simply took part in an "intense public debate" over "how serious of a threat" the virus posed, . . . . Legal experts largely agreed with the network's position that the lawsuit was unlikely to succeed.

Catherine Clark, an attorney for WASHLITE, vowed to respond to the motion and told Variety that the suit "was not about prohibiting free speech, but making sure that news organizations convey accurate information."

Legal culpability aside, media analysts have widely criticized Fox News for putting their viewers at risk by downplaying the threat posed by the virus, which has now killed 26,000 people in the United States.

"Fox failed its viewers and the broader public in ways both revealing and potentially lethal," wrote New York Times columnist Ben Smith.

A letter signed by more than 70 journalism professors around the country criticized Fox News for spreading "misinformation" about the virus.