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How Things Work in the UK When the Press Gets It Wrong
I thought you might be interested to see what happens in the UK when a newspaper publishes something which is factually-challenged and is then challenged on the facts.
It seems that The Daily Telegraph (a historically fine newspaper, and the only one I was allowed to read as a child, after a member of the staff had ironed it, of course), has fallen on hard times, and only last week published a cover story on Melania Trump in its Saturday magazine. Many of the “facts” alleged in the article were false.
The Telegraph has already “apologised “unreservedly” to Melania Trump and agreed to pay her “substantial damages””
Here is the full text of the Telegraph apology.
Published in General
The NYT would have acknowledged half the errors thus tacitly admitting it was largely crap but conclude that they otherwise “stand by the reporting.”
This is a serious load of twaddle.
A popular and decent assertion. The name of the case was Murray v Curlett. It would take five people to reverse it. Five.
When was the last time a “conservative” magazine advocated doing that? Who was the last “conservative” politician to advocate for Murray’s repeal?
When Leonard Leo put together his list of 20 or so recommended nominees to the Supreme Court, the list that President Trump is using, was “determined to overturn Murray v Curlett” a condition of getting on the list?
If it was the “most self-destructive event in US history over the last fifty years” shouldn’t it have been?
Or are we, as usual, committed to conserving the world that progressives have given us – in the name of principle, no matter the cost to our society and culture?
I wrote “Overturn New York Times v Sullivan. It only takes five men to do it.”
How many ideas do you want?
And the acknowledgment of errors would have been on Page A-18.
They’re not the same as intellectual rights, either, but so what? That’s a nice way to casually bat aside your claim to American violence in their sentiments.
To casually bat aside is indeed American. But not as American as swinging for the fences-
Here are a few: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/14/business/media/can-libel-laws-be-changed-under-trump.html
They could have shortened their apology considerably if they had just posted what they got right.
“In our article about Melania Trump, we spelled both ‘Melania’ and ‘Trump’ correctly. Everything else in the article was bovine excrement.”
When I see the Democrat party turning a blind eye to anti-Semitism among its elected Congressmen and its senators becoming wishy-washy towards BDS, I would say that “falling apart” is a mild description of what is going on, at least among half of the American electorate.
In the larger picture, when you remove G-d from a kid’s daily experience, that kid grows up thinking the world is a jungle and there is no accountability.
The founders I am sure would have been pleased with a voluntary daily prayer acknowledging our dependence upon G-d and asking for His blessings.
People would no doubt laugh at a movement that advocated for the return of public school prayer but continuing down the path of strict secularism is a perilous path for America’s children.
Still gorgeous . . .
Freedom of the Press is important, but ours is a bit out of hand in this country. I’m not sure what the answer is, but somehow we need to make them more responsible for infringing on the rights of the individual.
The Democrats advocate the overturning of Citizens United. They have stated it openly. I believe it was in their 2016 platform. Doing so will change the current meaning of the First Amendment regarding our political right to dissent, yours and mine.
Everybody reading this is aware of that. You all don’t have your conservative heads buried in the sand about this Democratic priority – right? They will do it if they get the chance and they won’t do it by the prescribed constitutional amendment process – we’re all cognizant of that, right?
The Democrats will either establish a new 5-to-4 majority if they get the power to replace two conservative justices on the Supreme Court, or they will increase the total number of justices to provide their future president and Senate majority with a surplus of votes to get their way.
No one who will be considered by the Democrats for the SCOTUS will be the slightest bit nuanced about their position on Citizens United. It will be as big a litmus test as abortion has been. No one will say it, but everyone will know it. YOU will know it.
That’s where things are. But there is complementary position as well.
It would take five votes to overturn NY Times v Sullivan.
It would take five votes to overturn Murray v Cutlett.
It would take five votes to overturn Wesberry v Sanders, Davis v Carr, Casey, Obergefell, Miranda, etc.
That is what we should be demanding – of our politicians, our judges, our influencers of public opinion. Not “stop history” as if it is already predetermined, but move the future in the direction we want it to go.
If you want the sale, you have to ask for it.
Now explain to me what “originalism” has achieved in turning back, not slowing down or confirming, Cultural Marxism and the progressive vision of an anarcho-libertarian America.
Smart, educated, talented, accomplished and yes, gorgeous. I admire our First Lady and I’m glad she won this one.
I’m old enough to remember when the legislature passed these things called bills.
Can Congress overturn a Supreme Court decision by passing a bill? Or are you suggesting something else?
OldB,
Yes, about 2 weeks later when maximum damage has already been done they issue the pseudo-apology. Being the “Paper of Record” means never having to say you’re sorry.
Regards,
Jim
Congress can “overturn” a SCOTUS decision by passing a law addressing whatever problems were identified by the court. However, if the “problems” are manufactured (like the right to privacy via a “penumbra”), it gets harder.
Question for you lawyers out there:
Can’t Congress pass laws and exempt them from SCOTUS review? I seem to remember reading something about it eons ago, and I can’t find the papyrus it was written on . . .
Based on the garbage that is Marbury v. Madison, yes. But that just leaves the 9th Circuit as the arbiter….
That was also a time, Scott, when this country had a 90% white majority.
But it is surely correlation, not causation, for our leadership class during this period to find it more beneficial to let a small elite make the rules for our culture and society, rather than trust those decisions to the polyglot, multi-cultural mass they transformed America into.
Just a coincidence.
Precisely.
I don’t know what this means. Would you please explain further?
Sure. It means it is just an accident that a preference for anti-democratic, elite governance – such as through judicial rule – has grown in America among our ruling class since the nation, once almost homogeneously white, European and Christian, has become progressively (pun intended) less white, less European and less Christian.
And the “irony” of this purely happenstance development is that the anti-democratic preference, which also manifests itself in the abandonment of the amendment process and in the devolution of our federal legislature from a law-making body into one more concerned with oversight, is most strongly held by the very people who brought about and support the fundamental demographic transformation I reference.
If one were suspicious, one could almost think that our American elite was practicing a sophisticated divide-and-conquer strategy: first divide – via massive, continuous, unquestioned immigration – a formerly high-social-trust American population into conflicting and mistrustful opposing national, religious and ethnic groups; then centralize governing power among an elite in order to mediate the interests of those warring factions.
But of course to think that would be wrong.
If it’s all happenstance, correlation without causation, then why mention the demographic change? Aren’t there quite a few things that have also happened over the past, say, 60 years, which we could mention as well? Like, for instance, the span of William Shatner’s career?
I’m not entirely opposed to the idea that demographic changes bring unintended consequences. It seems obvious to me that they do. I may have missed some comments on the first page of discussion, but I’m just not sure what demographic change has to do with Melania successfully suing a British newspaper.
Irony dies in archness.
I’m not very smart. I have a hard time when people don’t just say what they mean.
Writing is more fun – for me – when I can play with tone and style, and more gratifying – for me – when I can maintain those elements successfully, even in a short comment. Plain-speaking, however, has its advantages.
Demographic change, Max, brings unintended consequences; but it also brings about consequences which, because they are easily foreseen, can be viewed as intended. After all, “the supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils.”
I believe the fundamental demographic transformation of the US was deliberate, just as I believe the fundamental transformation of Great Britain was. There are several reasons why it was executed; however, I haven’t a doubt that one of its intended consequences was to weaken the idea of self-government in this nation and to elevate the power of unelected, unaccountable elites.
This thread highlighted the success of Melania Trump, who sued a British newspaper for slander. Melania and other public figures could begin to enjoy the same justice in the US if the Supreme Court decision “NY Times v Sullivan” were reversed. That would help to make our press more accountable. The press says it would violate the First Amendment.
But Democrats are itching to repeal “Citizens United” and restrict our First Amendment freedom to dissent. They are prepared to do whatever it will take. Their voters, augmented by decade-after-decade of massive immigration from non-Western countries, do not revere the old American ways, ways like the amendment process to the Constitution (or nine justices). Once they get power the Democrats are going fundamentally transform our constitutional system, just as immigration has fundamentally transformed the Democratic Party. I said we need to act decisively now to preserve our balanced system of restricted, accountable rule.
The press wants to be held harmless. The Supreme Court, which has made so many crucial decisions since the 1960s, is the least unaccountable branch. Congress, even though its members’ re-elections are almost guaranteed, makes few laws and passes that duty on to an unaccountable bureaucracy. The Electoral College is now up for debate. One of our two historic political parties, in fact the oldest, is now effectively socialist, with all that portends for more top-down, unaccountable policies and programs. America is changing.
And the Democratic party’s voters, who are growing in numbers thanks to a deliberate policy of laissez-faire and easy immigration, seem to prefer that. As do the heads of our corporations, institutions, universities, foundations and most groups centered in Washington, DC. Yes, all of our elites prefer unaccountable, anti-democratic rule – and they will call you the dirtiest name in the political lexicon for suggesting that legal immigration from the Third World should be curbed.
What’s happening is no coincidence, Max. It was intended.
Well said.