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 story.
WTVT aired a revised version of their report. According to Akre, the station’s move distorted the truth — which, she claimed, violated a provision by the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC. The station denied that characterization.
Akre further alleged that WTVT fired her and Wilson for threatening to notify the FCC, violating the agency’s whistleblower’s statute. Meanwhile, the station said it terminated the reporters for refusing to make revisions to the story.
In 2000, a Tampa jury ruled in Akre’s favor. WTVT appealed the case. In court, the station argued FCC’s news distortion policy is not a codified law; it also said the First Amendment bars the judicial review of editorial discretion.
An appeals court agreed that the news distortion policy did not qualify as a protected rule under the whistleblower’s statute. The ruling did not address the station’s First Amendment argument.
In 2014, Akre told PolitiFact that she didn’t remember WTVT admitting to lying and defending it as a legal right.
Our ruling
A Facebook post said Fox News sought the legal “right to tell lies.”
The post cited a lawsuit from 1998. PolitiFact found that the case did not involve Fox News Channel; it centered on a local TV station owned and operated by a subsidiary of Fox Corp.
The lawsuit involved two reporters who sued a Fox-owned affiliate over breach of contract and retaliatory firing. The station didn’t contend it had no legal obligation to be truthful, nor did a court uphold that.
We rate this claim False.
This fact check was originally published by PolitiFact, which is part of the Poynter Institute. It is republished here with permission. See the sources for this fact check here and more of their fact checks here.
