Fox,News "Fair and Balanced" sued for false advertising!

[Pryderi]

Is this possible?

[ClusterFreak]

1. Maybe????

...I hear O'Reilly likes to settle out of court, and offers big bucks!!!

:rofl:

[AuntieM1957]

4. Is that bucks

or sucks?

[Scout1071]

2. Link?

I vaguely remember hearing about a plan to sue.

[madeline_con]

3. Is this the case???

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=2nd/017983.html

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. No, it's stupid

False advertising claims usually refer to either physically provable features of a product or to promised contract mechanisms that turn out to be unavailable; they are mostly civil versions of an attempt to defraud (by bait-and-switch, for instance), or - even more commonly - suits filed by competitor entities. There's usually some property right at stake (see American Washboard v. Saginaw, if I remember correctly). Even if you were to look at the Lanham Act statute, you'd have a hard time arguing damage. That's the most severe problem. But you'd have additional problems in lack of concreteness. The terms "fair and balanced" come nowhere near approaching the level of concreteness required for false advertising claims, since they are vague and have no underlying, universally recognized standard. That's the first problem. The second is that Fox news would probably be able to show "balance," but it would be on the Hannity and Colmes model: the lack of balance is usually a question of tone and nuance rather than objective measures: a sneer while describing the Democratic position would hardly be sufficient to demonstrate that Fox News lacks balance, especially if they gave as much time to it as the enthusastically reported GOP position. You'd have no footing under either common law or the Lanham statute. Spend your energy on more productive endeavors.

[Pryderi]

6. Bush is president. Wouldn't that qualify as "damage" since

Fox newswatchers were largely uninformed and voted for Bush? Viewers of Fox News believed Iraq was connected to 9-11 up until after the election. Would Fox at least be guilty of not reporting news?

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. LOL. No, that would not qualify as damages, in a tortious sense

Although one can certainly claim that it is "damaging" in general...

[auburngrad82]

7. Remember when Fox sued Franken over "fair and balanced"

and the judge laughed at the lawyers for Fox?

[Pryderi]

9. Right, but that was a trademark suit, not an issue of false advertising.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

8. Puffery...

Companies are allowed to distort the truth, providing that they can't be proven to be lying -- typically by some type of empirical evidence. In this case, obnoxious as they are, Fox can claim to be "fair and balanced."

[FtWayneBlue]

10. Have you checked out the flick, "Outfoxed?" n/t