Judge: No Reasonable Viewer Believes Fox News Is Factual

From this article:

A federal judge dismisses the defamation case against Tucker Carlson, concluding that he is not a provider of “the news” as we know it, or “facts” as we commonly understand them, and his audience knows this.

The “general tenor” of the show should then inform a viewer that he is not “stating actual facts” about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in “exaggeration” and “non-literal commentary.” … Given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ …

In other words, “any reasonable viewer” doesn’t actually believe what Tucker Carlson is saying to be true. It is therefore unreasonable to take what Tucker Carlson says as truth.

While I personally don’t accept anything on Fox News as factual, it’s hard to understand how a judge made this decision.  In the first place, the channel is called “Fox News,” not “Fox Opinions, Fox Lies, Fox Bull****” or anything else.  According to the dictionary, “news” is defined as “a broadcast or published report of newly received or noteworthy information, especially about recent or important events.”

More importantly, as sad and as terrifying as it may be, there are many millions of Americans whose main (or sole) news source is Fox News, or, at least, who believe what they see and hear there fervently.  When I talk with my mother and she tells me what an honest and effective president Trump is, she didn’t get that from the New York Times or even the right-leaning Wall Street Journal.  She believes this as fact, because she heard some articulate, attractive, and nicely dressed person deliver that, as fact, on Fox News.

No wonder this country is in the state it’s in.