A viral post recycled an old claim that Fox News Channel is officially registered as an entertainment outlet — not an authentic news organization. To build the case, the post said Fox even sought the legal right to tell lies.
“Fox is not a news organization. It is GOP propaganda in a format that appears to be a TV news channel,” an Aug. 21 Facebook post read. The image goes on to claim that Fox won a legal appeal “that declared it had no legal obligation to be truthful in its reporting.”
Then it asked: “What reputable news organization would litigate for its right to tell lies?”
This claim about Fox News is wrong, and it was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
PolitiFact fact-checked a similar statement in 2014. We found that the lawsuit did not involve Fox News Channel; it centered on a local TV station in Tampa, Florida, owned and operated by a subsidiary of the Fox Corp.
Even so, the Fox-owned affiliate didn’t contend it had no legal obligation to be truthful, nor did a court uphold that.
At issue is a lawsuit involving two married reporters who sued their former employer, WTVT, Channel 13, for breach of contract and retaliatory firing in 1998.
Two years prior, Steve Wilson and Jane Akre — the reporting duo — began examining the use of a synthetic growth hormone in Florida dairy cattle. The reporters could not come to an agreement with WTVT over edits to the...
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