Nick Edwards

A few people have asked me what I thought of the defamation suit against Fox I believe that the extreme and intentional distortions of the truth by those in the media who abuse their first amendment rights are a threat to both our understanding of what is true and our democracy. For that reason, I thought that Fox having to pay a settlement of $787 million and acknowledge “the Court’s finding certain claims about Dominion to be false” was great. The only thing that would have been better would have been for the case to go to trial and become a landmark case. If you read my book Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order or my posts on this subject (lnkd.in/eauBipzc), you know that I believe that the erosion of truth and trust in media is a classic threat to social order that is typical at the stage in “internal order cycle” we are now in. It wasn’t always the case that those in media could use the First Amendment to publish sensational, damaging, and inflammatory information. In 1919, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes sensibly ruled against falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater and doing harm. In the US, libel standards varied but were generally more like the standards that now exist in Canada and the UK where defamed parties can prevail in cases in which the published information is shown to be wrong and damaging. The independent media flourished back then and does now in those two countries. Then in the US, the pendulum swung in the direction of almost total freedom in the media with the famous 1964 Supreme Court case, The New York Times Co. vs. Sullivan. This case shifted the standard so that in order to win a libel suit, the defamed party had to prove more than just that harmful false information was published—i.e., the defamed party had to prove that there was “actual malice.” After that ruling, the actions of some in the media pushed the limits even further, taking the ruling as a license to lie and defame (which was an effective way to sell newspapers and books and to boost TV ratings), and the courts were sympathetic to them, so the extremes became even greater. I think that the excesses and their damages are now beginning to be recognized so the pendulum is beginning to swing back. For example, Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch recently said of Sullivan, it “evolved into an ironclad subsidy for the publication of falsehoods by means and on a scale previously unimaginable.” This a bipartisan issue about what is good for our country. I encourage you think hard about whether what you read in the media is false or misleading and speak out with your distain for false information when you see it.