[mapt]

To willingly lie about something you need to be able to differentiate truth from fiction. Defamation hinges on either this willing lie ("malice") or on negligence (and the expected due diligence for a self-professed news organization is high). There is a little performative middle ground here, but WHATEVER is argued in court does not moot the things argued at every commercial break about trusting their news institution to report the facts. Fox news is not, and never has been, intended as satire.

[cj]

> Fox news is not, and never has been, intended as satire

Their homepage right now is featuring a pull up and push up contest between Hegseth and RFK jr.

It hardly appears as though they’re trying to be a legitimate news network. (Same goes for CNN - both are incredibly and undeniably outrageous in their reporting)

But I agree, their audiences take their reporting seriously, even if they themselves are just saying what they say for the ratings.

[mapt]

A light comedy piece or a plucky human interest story do not erase the statements of fact made or the repeated insistence on being taken seriously which pervade the rest of this institution. It isn't even reliant on their audience taking them seriously, it's reliant on the intended tone and how a reasonable person would perceive that intent.

You can argue that Fox News is intended to be basically the Colbert Report satirizing a certain mindset, but it's an obviously bad-faith argument. The Colbert Report was literally created to satirize the seriousness and mendacity of Fox News and its attempts to persuade people into a set of not just interpretations of the world, but factual beliefs about that world.

There is a line, and Fox runs way over the line into defamatory content multiple times an hour.

I can't immunize myself from currency counterfeiting charges by claiming that I never thought the copies were real, that it was all just in fun, that I was pranking the businesses I spent them at, and that my Youtube channel includes other fun bits of me deceiving people and telling jokes. The one does not exculpate the other.

[TheOtherHobbes]

It's the narcissist's "Ha ha ha only joking" defence.