Free Republic

A little-known Washington nonprofit has filed a lawsuit against Fox News in King County Superior Court, claiming the news station, its parent companies and owners violated the state’s Consumer Protection Act and acted in bad faith by disseminating false information about the novel coronavirus through its television news broadcasts and minimized the danger posed by the virus as COVID-19 began to explode into a pandemic. The suit, filed on behalf of the Washington League for Increased Transparency and Ethics (WASHLITE), alleges Fox News engaged in unfair or deceptive acts by representing the coronavirus as a hoax in broadcasts that aired...

Via Drudge and Twitchy, just a reminder that your parents were right: what starts in laughter often ends in tears, or in this case, hefty legal bills. Gawker’s Joe Muto decided to become a “mole” at Fox News and leaked raw video clips to his real employer. That might sound like a joke to some, but to others — say, prosecutors — it sounds a lot like corporate espionage and grand larceny. Muto got served this morning with a search warrant on suspicion of the latter charge and watched as his laptop, iPhone, and notebooks got hauled off. Poynter and...

U.S. prosecutors have sent News Corp. a letter seeking information about possible payments made by its U.K. tabloid newspapers to British policemen, according to people familiar with the matter. The letter of request, sent last week, is part of a Justice Department investigation, these people said, into whether the company violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a U.S. law that prohibits companies from bribing foreign officials. The fact the Justice Department chose to issue a "letter of request" rather than a criminal subpoena suggests the department has opted for a less confrontational approach to the matter, legal experts say.

U.S. prosecutors have sent News Corp. a letter seeking information about possible payments made by its U.K. tabloid newspapers to British policemen, according to people familiar with the matter. The letter of request, sent last week, is part of a Justice Department investigation, these people said, into whether the company violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a U.S. law t hat prohibits companies from bribing foreign officials. The fact the Justice Department chose to issue a "letter of request" rather than a criminal subpoena suggests the department has opted for a less confrontational approach to the matter, legal experts say....

On April 8, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi headlined a Boston conference on ''media reform.'' She was joined by four other congressmen, a senator, two FCC commissioners, a Nobel laureate and numerous liberal journalists. The 2,500-person event was sponsored by a group called Free Press, one of more than 180 different media-related organizations that receives money from liberal billionaire George Soros. Soros, who first made a name for himself in investing and currency trading, now makes his name in politics and policy. Since the 2004 election, the controversial financier has used his influence and billions to push a laundry list...

Fox News off and then on again at Escondido gym Fitness devotee Dianne Lowe's best exercise in recent days may be standing up for what she says is free speech. The five-year member of the LA Fitness club on El Norte Parkway in Escondido was outraged last week when she went to turn on the right-leaning cable channel while working out and found it wouldn't come in. Lowe talked to a gym attendant, who she said told her that LA Fitness officials had ordered it shut down. "They told me, 'We are not allowed to turn on Fox News,' and...

To most news Web sites, what happened at the White House on Thursday night was a private 50th birthday party for President Obama. To an editor at Fox News, it was something a little different. “Obama’s Hip-Hop BBQ Didn’t Create Jobs,” read the headline on an article on The Fox Nation,a conservative arm of FoxNews.com, which is owned by the News Corporation. Below the headline were photos of Mr. Obama and, separately, three black celebrities who attended the party, the basketball player Charles Barkley, the comedian Chris Rock and the rapper Jay-Z. Not pictured were any attendees of other racial...

As unreason triumphs in the US, a similar paranoia and refusal to accept scientific fact threaten to invade British politics. Tea Party madness has brought the US to the brink of economic mayhem, risking taking much of the world with it. In the face of obdurate unreason, the president of hyper-reasonableness was forced to surrender. The economic credibility of the country that holds the global reserve currency has wobbled. The political credibility of the world's beacon of democracy has failed in the face of an insurgency of unreason. Facts, evidence, probability, possibility – none of that matters to a movement...

Mr Morgan, a former News of the World and Daily Mirror editor who is now a high-profile television presenter in the US, has spent the past week categorically denying ever printing material derived from phone hacking. He spoke out after being accused by a Conservative MP and political bloggers of being involved in the phone hacking scandal that has engulfed Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, for which he used to work. “For the record, in my time at the News of the World and the Mirror, I have never hacked a phone, told anyone to hack a phone, or published any...

How does this year's phone hacking scandal at the now-defunct British tabloid News of the World . . . compare with last year's contretemps over the release of classified information by Julian Assange's WikiLeaks and his partners at the New York Times, the Guardian and other newspapers? At bottom, they're largely the same story. . . . Both, in short, are despicable instances of journalistic malpractice, for which some kind of price ought to be paid. So why is one a scandal, replete with arrests, resignations and parliamentary inquests, while the other is merely a controversy, with Mr. Assange's name...

MSNBC president Phil Griffin gave an interview to Jeff Bercovici of Forbes, and said all the usual things about how MSNBC is less ideological than Fox News and Fox is a success despite not always being based in fact. But Griffin claimed no one ever knew what Tim Russert’s politics were and insisted that MSNBC is defined as "very smart progressive politics and information." The boss of “very smart” MSNBC is not going to tolerate crude terms for the president (well, this president) on its airwaves, because “We’re not a frat house.” At MSNBC, Griffin claimed, "name-calling and

Critics: WSJ edit is suck-up to Murdoch By: Reid J. Epstein July 18, 2011 09:38 AM EDT Safe to say the Wall Street Journal’s defiant editorial page defense of News Corp. in the growing phone hacking scandal did not convince anyone in the liberal blogosphere or the Journal diaspora. The scathing editorial, which attacks the Guardian, the New York Times, ProPublica and politicians who have called for investigations into News Corp., drew outrage from both inside the Journal newsroom – anonymously, of course – and from former Journal reporters. “(The) WSJ Editorial is sad,” wrote Sarah Ellison, former Journal reporter...

The parent company of Fox News — News Corp. — paid the U.S. government $4.8 billion in taxes over the last four tax years (2007-2010). GE, which owned most of MSNBC until late last year, paid zero taxes in 2010.In fact, GE received a $3.2 billion welfare check from Uncle Sam.From Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston: (Reuters) — Readers, I apologize. The premise of my debut column for Reuters, on News Corp’s taxes, was wrong, 100 percent dead wrong.Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp did not get a $4.8 billion tax refund for the past four years, as I reported. Instead,...

"We'd prefer if you skip Fox please," a White House broadcast media staffer advised a Treasury Department public affairs secretary ahead of the interview. In other emails during the same time frame, deputy White House communications director Jennifer Psaki called Fox News anchor Bret Baier "a lunatic" and boasted that "I am putting some dead fish in the fox cubby--just cause." In yet another email, another White House press officer wrote: "We've demonstrated our willingness and ability to exclude Fox News from significant interviews …"

White House Emails Detail anti Fox Bias inside Obama White House: “I’m putting some dead fish in the fox cubby -- just cause” “[FNC Anchor] Bret Baier…is a lunatic” Washington, DC -- July 14, 2011Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has uncovered documents from the Obama Department of Treasury showing that the Obama administration, contrary to its repeated denials, attempted to exclude the Fox News Channel (FNC) from a round of interviews with Treasury’s “Executive Pay Czar” Kenneth Feinberg. The documents, which include email exchanges within the Department of the...

For seven years Fox News has pushed back against the daily scrutiny and criticism leveled at it by Media Matters, the liberal watchdog group. But after David Brock, the group’s founder, said in March that his group’s new strategy amounted to a “war on Fox,” Fox ratcheted up its response. In the past ten days, the news channel has run more than 30 segments calling for the nonprofit group to be stripped of its tax-exempt status. Its Fox Nation website has even provided a link to pre-completed complaint forms

Juan Williams appeared on Fox & Friends and told Brian Kilmeade it was laughable that Media Matters is considered a charitable institution when they are dedicated to silencing honest debate. Kilmeade was shocked that Media Matters searches for disgruntled Fox News employees to help with their campaign against the network, and now Williams and other Fox personalities seem ready to fight back. Williams described the evolution of Media Matters: “Obviously it’s not an honest watchdog group anymore. They used to monitor the media and point out things that were wrong, false, inappropriate, which is fine, but what you are hearing...

Over the past few months, the antics of liberal advocacy group Media Matters have been chronicled and in some cases have received accolades from the media. One such report was a March 22 story by The Washington Post on the organization’s boot camp for wonks. But does Media Matters’ political involvement violate the terms for its tax-exempt status?Baier posed the question to the panel on Tuesday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel. Media Matters has been engaged in a war on Baier’s network. And according to Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, it’s clear that the organization isn’t a “charitable...

Any remaining doubt that Media Matters reason-for-being is to take down FOX News? Check this out. Turns out the progressive, non-profit watch dog website has a FOX News "war room" that operates in four separate shifts from the hours of 5am to 1am. According to FishbowlDC, they employ specific teams that focus on Glenn Beck's radio and television show. Considering those folks will be out of a job come the end of the week -- Beck's last show is Friday -- and Media Matters

David Brock, the conservative turned liberal advocate, has recently garnered a considerable amount of press coverage for his attacks on Fox News for, among many other things, allegedly taking over leadership of the Republican Party. What the news coverage has ignored is his use of tax-free funds for his organization, Media Matters for America (MMA), for these attacks — a form of government support for activities that clearly do not merit tax-exempt status and that as a result infringe on Fox News’ First Amendment rights. MMA was originally established as an Internal Revenue Service Section 501(c)(3) organization, that is, an...