Franken Wins

Posted on August 24, 2003 in Censorship

I am, as is often the case, the last blogger to hear the news, but it is good news: the Fox News motion for a restraining order was laughed out of court. Literally:

Fox…objected to the use of a picture of Bill O’Reilly, one of its prominent news personalities, on the cover, claiming that it could be mistaken as an endorsement of the book.

But these arguments were met by laughter in the crowded courtroom, as Fox tried to defend its signature slogan. Part of the network’s burden was to prove that Mr. Franken’s use of the phrase “fair and balanced” would lead to consumer confusion.

One round of laughter was prompted when Judge Chin asked, “Do you think that the reasonable consumer, seeing the word `lies’ over Mr. O’Reilly’s face would believe Mr. O’Reilly is endorsing this book?”

The giggling continued as Dori Ann Hanswirth, a lawyer for Fox, replied, “To me, it’s quite ambiguous as to what the message is here.”

She continued, “It does not say `parody’ or `satire.’ “

Ms. Hanswirth said Fox’s “signature slogan” was also blurred, because people who were not associated with the network, which owns the Fox News Channel, also appear on the cover with Mr. O’Reilly.

Judge Chin said, “The president and the vice president are also on the cover. Is someone going to consider that they are affiliated with Fox?”

The courtroom broke into laughter again.

Fox News and Bill O’Reilly’s attempt to build fences around the parts of the English language which might be used as criticism of their incidierary, jingoistic punditry amounted to a corporation attempting to set itself up as a tyrannical government. The plaintiffs seemed to believe that freedom of speech means that they can say whatever they want and no one can criticize them for it. Judge Chin gave them an important civics lesson: not only can’t you trademark the common tongue, but whenever you open your mouth, you are subject to criticism. You can keep the critics off your channel, your weblog, etc., but you cannot silence them entirely. This is the price we all pay for freedom of speech.

If you haven’t bought your copy of Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, click on the title link.

---

A personal comment on the “fair and balanced” rebellion: Many blogs advertised themselves as “fair and balanced” after the Fox News attack on Franken and Penguin Books. I chose not to do so. I respect the spirit of the counterthrust, but I felt that advertising Pax Nortona as “fair and balanced” would be doing pretty much the same thing that Fox News was doing, namely imposing my personal judgement of my objectivity on others. I leave it to my readers to decide if I am “fair and balanced”. I suspect that the judgement will be “sometimes yes, sometimes not”. I try.