I’m not the best person to ask this (not a legal scholar) but some pathway to hold “the press” accountable when they abuse the power of their freedom. If “the press” convinced their audience to take matters into their own hands and execute a local prisoner, should they not be liable? Somehow?
Depends what exactly it meant by "convinced."
Homicide is not protected by the first amendment. Speech is. You can’t port the processes for one to the law of the other.
Very good point. But would “the press” not be liable for inciting a murder, just as I would be if I misused speech to incite violence? Thanks for the exchange, by the way. I am learning here.
My advice: read up on Brandenburg v. Ohio. Short version: you're gonna have problems with showing the imminent nature of the incitement.
If it was actual incitement under the legal standard, yes. That is a VERY high bar that is nearly impossible to meet, and in fact I’m having trouble coming up with a fact pattern by which the press could do so even hypothetically. There’s also the additional problem of defining “the press.”
You'd basically have to have someone like, say, a Jesse Watters, up on stage, whipping a crowd into a murderous frenzy, and then saying "Now go kill the bastards!!!" and the crowd then immediately does it. And even then, in this climate, I'd figure that'd be a tough conviction to get to stick.
Thank you again for engaging in this discussion I am realizing that there are a couple of fundamental problems here. The first, is that I am not a lawyer and certainly not a legal scholar. This ties to the second problem that I see…
I am not at all attempting to explain how the law works. Referencing case law isn’t required from my argument. I am not in any way trying to say what precedent tells us about the way the law should work. What I am doing is presenting some pie in the sky idea about how the law should work.
I realize this is a very complicated topic, but I’m making the case, and have been making this case since my original post, that there should be some accountability for the misuse of the tremendous power which comes with “freedom of press”
The Fox News – Dominion settlement is a proximate example of the kind of thing I am talking about. There’s no reason this could not be a fully adjudicated matter on behalf of the people of the United States, and not Dominion.
I am asserting that freedom of speech and freedom of the press are not absolute and that there are exceptions to these rights. We see this with the second amendment as well. I’m simply proposing that the bar for exceptions would be much lower and easier to clear.
And of course, I would want to clear that bar without creating a system that damages the innocent or tends to limit the core rights in question. I realize this is a very difficult thing to do, but this is my position. Unlimited freedom of the press, without any checks, harms every American.
Okay, so let’s game it out. Give me a hypothetical of a situation that you think should be actionable.
The only reason it wasn’t is because Fox settled, yes. Is there a reason why the settling was bad? Should it have been forbidden?
Not forbidden… just not enough. They are still doing exactly what they settled about.
Not against Dominion, they aren’t.
I know. But even under that framework, either the constitution still exists as it currently does, or it would have to change in order to allow your idea to unfold. In the latter case, that would have other consequences, which I don’t think are desirable and I don’t think you would either.
I think the best real world example I can think of is Radio Télévision des Mille Collines during the Rwandan genocide. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found several instances of the naming of specific locations/individuals around Kigali who were then attacked.
You would *not* be liable either, unless you uttered speech which is both directed to incite or produce imminent lawless action and likely to incite or produce such action. And "imminent" has been defined by the courts to basically mean "right now".
If by “convince” you mean “incite to imminent lawless action” (Brandenburg v Ohio), you hit the nail on the head. That doesn’t apply just the press, but anyone.